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THE  PRESENT 
MILITARY  SITUAT: 
IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 


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FRANCIS  VINTON  GREENE 

MAJOR  GENERAL,  U.S.V. 


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BOOKS  BY  GENERAL  F.  V.  GREENE 

Published  bt  CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


THE   PRESENT    MILITARY    SITUATION    IN    THE 

UNITED  STATES.     12mo  net  $0.75 

THE  REVOLUTIONARY  WAR  AND  THE  MILITARY 
POLICY  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES.  With  Maps. 
8vo «W$2.50 

THE  MISSISSIPPI.    With  Maps.     (Campaigns  of  Ike 

CmlWar.)    12mo net  $1.00 


THE  PRESENT 

MILITARY  SITUATION  IN  THE 

UNITED  STATES 


JHE  PEESENT 

MILITAEY  SITUATION  IN  THE 

UNITED  STATES 


BY 

FRANCIS  VINTON  GREENE 

GRADUATE   OF   WEST   POINT;     UAJOK-GENEKAL   D.  S.  V. 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

1915 


AAP< 


COPTMGHT,   1915,  BT 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  February,  1915 


PREFACE 

The  following  pages  are,  substantially,  a 
reprint  of  an  address  recently  delivered  in 
Portland,  Maine,  at  the  request  of  the  Eco- 
nomic Club  of  that  city. 

I  hope  that  they  may,  in  some  small  degree, 
help  to  persuade  the  civilians,  the  voters,  the 
"plain  people"  of  Lincoln,  the  lovers  of  peace 
and  all  its  infinite  benefits,  to  give  calm  but 
thoughtful  consideration  to  this  question  of 
adequate  national  defense.  It  is  eminently 
worthy  of  their  consideration. 

Francis  V.  Greene. 

Buffalo,  February  i,  1915. 


THE  PRESENT 

MILITARY  SITUATION  IN  THE 

UNITED  STATES 


THE  PRESENT  MILITARY  SITUATION 
IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 

I  feel  somewhat  diffident  in  speaking  in  such 
distinguished  company,  and  I  should  hesitate 
to  appear  with  them,*  but  for  the  fact  that  all 
my  life  I  have  studied — and  at  times  written 
upon — the  important  subject  which  is  under 
discussion  to-night;  and,  I  may  frankly  say, 
have  never  accomplished  anything  by  any- 
thing I  have  ever  written  upon'it.  I  am  not 
alone  in  that.  The  most  distinguished  soldiers 
we  have  ever  had — General  Sherman  in  par- 
ticular— have  written  to  the  same  effect,  but 
without  producing  the  slightest  impression 
upon  the  minds  of  their  countrymen.  In  1876, 
more  than  a  generation  ago,  General  Sherman 
was  chairman  of  a  commission  appointed  by 

*  The  other  speakers  were  Lieutenant-General  Nelson  A. 
Miles,  U.  S.  Army,  and  Professor  John  Graham  Brooks,  of 
Harvard;  one  of  them  the  only  survivor  of  the  leading  gen- 
erals in  the  Civil  War  and  of  the  great  Indian -fighters  of  1865- 
1890,  and  the  other,  one  of  the  most  profound  economic 
students  of  the  day. 

3 


4  MILITARY  SITUATION 

Act  of  Congress  to  study  and  report  upon  this 
same  question  that  we  are  discussing  to-night, 
viz. :  the  question  of  our  national  defense  and 
the  formulation  of  a  military  policy  suited 
to  our  special  requirements.  Nobody  now 
knows  that  this  commission  was  appointed; 
the  fact  has  long  since  been  forgotten.  I 
know  about  it  because  I  was  for  a  time  the 
secretary  of  the  commission.  General  Sher- 
man was  then  in  command  of  the  army,  a 
soldier  of  world-wide  reputation.  His  vivid 
memoirs  had  already  been  published:  his 
duties  as  commanding  general  of  the  army 
(the  constitutional  Commander-in-Chief,  who 
at  that  time  was  also  a  great  general,  Grant, 
and  the  Secretary  of  War  being  present)  were 
not  such  as  to  deprive  him  of  the  leisure 
necessary  for  this  important  work;  and,  as 
we  all  know,  he  wielded  the  pen  not  so  much 
of  a  ready  writer  as  of  a  vigorous  soldier, 
and  he  expressed  his  thoughts  clearly,  in- 
cisively. And  General  Sherman  threw  himself 
into  the  task  as  chairman  of  this  commission 
with  his  usual  enthusiasm.    He  thought  that 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES         5 

perhaps  he  might  be  instrumental  in  formu- 
lating a  definite  military  policy  for  this  coun- 
try, and  he  welcomed  the  chance  of  doing  this, 
which  he  hoped  would  be  the  capstone  of 
his  military  career.  He  searched  our  mil- 
itary archives  from  the  time  of  Washington 
to  the  time  of  Grant.  He  pored  over  the  end- 
less and  tiresome  documents  in  those  mass- 
ive quartos  entitled  "American  State  Pa- 
pers," *  and  particularly  the  seven  volumes  on 
"Military  Affairs,"  March  3,  1789,  to  March 
1,  1838,  the  existence  of  which  is  now  known 
only  to  the  historical  specialist  of  more  than 
ordinary  curiosity.  He  examined  all  the  un- 
published records  of  the  Mexican  War.  He 
was  himself  the  creator  of  a  great  part  of  the 
most  valuable  records  of  the  Civil  War,  then 
just  beginning  to  be  published.  He  worked 
ten  and  twelve  hours  a  day  at  this,  with  the 
same  ardor  that  he  displayed  in  his  pursuit 

*  "American  State  Papers.  Military  Affairs."  Vols.  Ill 
to  VII  (1823  to  1838)  and  vols.  XII  and  XIII  (1789  to  1825), 
selected  and  edited,  under  the  authority  of  Congress,  by 
the  secretary  of  the  Senate  and  the  clerk  of  the  House  of 
Representatives.  Large  quartos,  about  1,000  pages  and 
3,000,000  words  in  each  volume. 


6  MILITARY  SITUATION 

of  the  wily  Joe  Johnston  from  Chattanooga 
to  Atlanta.  From  all  these  voluminous  data 
of  millions  of  words  he  prepared  a  history  of 
the  army  and  of  our  military  policy — or  lack 
of  policy — concise,  accurate.  The  curious,  if 
so  minded,  may  find  it  in  the  musty  records 
of  the  Forty-fourth  Congress,  as  a  Senate 
Executive  Document.  Not  content  with 
his  own  researches  and  opinions,  he  sum- 
moned the  principal  soldiers  of  the  Civil  War 
(it  was  only  eleven  years  after  Appomattox 
and  most  of  them  were  still  living)  to  testify 
before  the  commission  and  to  put  in  writing 
their  matured  views  as  to  what  ought  to 
be  the  military  policy  of  the  United  States, 
and  the  proper  organization  of  our  military 
strength  and  enormous  but  undeveloped  mil- 
itary resources  in  order  to  carry  this  policy 
into  effect.  Hancock,  Schofield,  McDowell, 
McClellan,  Terry,  Pope,  Ord,  Humphreys, 
Meigs,  Townsend,  and  Garfield  responded  in 
short  but  comprehensive  papers. 

After  nearly  seven  months  of  this  labor 
the  documents  were  transmitted  to  Congress, 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  7 

with  a  definite,  explicit  recommendation  as  to 
the  legislation  necessary  to  give  us  a  definite 
military  policy. 

What  happened?  The  documents  were 
printed,  part  of  the  tons  of  documents  which 
come  out  of  the  Government  Printing  Office 
during  every  session  of  Congress.  No  more. 
There  was  a  brief  debate,  no  action,  and  the 
subject  was  dropped.  Two  years  later  a 
"Joint  Committee  on  the  Reorganization  of 
the  Army"  was  appointed,  with  General  Burn- 
side,  then  a  Senator  from  Rhode  Island,  as 
chairman  and  General  M.  C.  Butler,  then  a 
Senator  from  South  Carolina,  as  one  of  its 
members.  The  survivors  of  the  Civil  War 
who  had  held  high  command  were  again 
summoned  to  give  their  testimony,  eminent 
civilians  were  called  upon  to  give  their  views, 
again  a  document  was  printed  (Forty-fifth 
Congress,  3rd  Session,  Senate  Report  No.  555, 
pp.  512),  and  again,  after  a  brief  debate,  the 
subject  was  dropped.  It  was  not  seriously 
taken  up  again  for  thirty  years. 

Why  was  this?    Because  in  the  brief  de- 


8  MILITARY  SITUATION 

bates  above  referred  to  it  was  stated — and 
then,  as  always,  Congress  represented  with 
substantial  accuracy  the  opinion  of  the  ma- 
jority of  the  voters — that  this  country  would 
never  again  be  engaged  in  war;  and  there- 
fore, in  the  midst  of  such  pressing  questions 
as  the  building  of  the  Western  railroads,  the 
resumption  of  specie  payments,  the  silver 
question,  and  the  tariff,  there  was  no  time 
to  think  about  the  needs  of  the  army.  There 
was  no  "military  situation  in  the  United 
States"  worth  thinking  about. 

From  this  dream  of  perpetual  peace  we 
were  rudely  awakened  by  the  war  in  1898,  in 
which  the  loss  of  life  and  the  expenditure  of 
money  were  so  comparatively  small,  but  of 
which  the  consequences  to  us  have  been  so 
momentous.  Still,  our  people  continued  to 
think  that  the  chances  of  war  were  quite 
remote;  and  the  subject  of  military  prepara- 
tion a  matter  of  small  importance,  compared 
with  the  regulation  of  public-service  corpora- 
tions, the  control  of  monopoly,  the  improve- 
ment of  our  banking  system,  and  the  other 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  9 

great  questions  pressing  hard  for  considera- 
tion upon  a  very  busy  people.  The  events 
of  the  last  six  months,  however,  have  at  last 
opened  the  eyes  of  our  people  to  the  fact 
that,  while  we  are  comparatively  immune 
from  the  dangers  of  war  which  beset  the 
peoples  of  Europe,  yet  we  are  by  no  means 
completely  immune.  They  begin  to  realize 
that  the  "present  military  situation"  is  a 
subject  which  deserves  their  consideration,  that 
it  is  of  equal  importance — perhaps  greater 
importance — than  the  federal  reserve  banking 
law,  the  income  tax,  the  Sherman  law,  the 
tariff,  the  extension  of  our  commerce,  and 
the  rebuilding  of  our  merchant  marine;  and 
therefore  it  is  a  subject  worthy  of  calm,  se- 
rious deliberation. 

There  is  no  need  of  excitement  about  it,  no 
cause  for  hysteria.  We  do  not  need  and  will 
not  have  in  this  country  an  army  of  700,000 
men,  as  some  ill-balanced  enthusiasts  demand; 
we  are  not  compelled  to,  and  we  will  not, 
enter  the  battleship  race  of  England  and  Ger- 
many.   England  must  run  this  race — or  die. 


10  MILITARY  SITUATION 

We  are  not  so  situated,  and  it  would  be  su- 
preme folly  for  us  to  waste  our  resources  or  our 
thoughts  in  any  such  contest.  But  we  do 
need  to  give  such  thought  to  this  matter  as  is 
necessary,  in  order  to  compel  our  representa- 
tives in  Congress  so  to  organize  our  latent 
but  enormous  military  strength  that  no  na- 
tion shall  ever  undertake  to  disturb  our  se- 
curity, or  attempt  to  prevent  us  from  working 
out  our  great  destiny  in  the  pursuits  of  peace. 
One  other  question  I  should  like  to  refer 
to  here.  Does  preparation  for  war  result  in 
preserving  peace  or  in  inviting  war?  Many 
men  of  eminence,  presidents  of  universities, 
leaders  of  public  opinion,  have  recently  as- 
serted that  the  great  conflict  which  is  now 
devastating  Europe  has  forever  disposed  of 
the  fallacy  that  preparation  for  war  helps  to 
preserve  peace.  In  my  humble  opinion  this 
is  a  hasty,  ill-considered  judgment  and — if  I 
may  say  so  without  offense  to  these  univer- 
sity presidents  who  are  not  only  my  personal 
friends,  but  are  men  justly  entitled  to  lead 
public  opinion  and  for  whom,  in  common  with 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        11 

thousands  of  others,  I  have  very  great  admi- 
ration— it  is  a  shallow  judgment,  due  to  the 
mental  perturbation  naturally  arising  from 
contemplation  of  this  most  appalling  of  all 
catastrophes.  The  sober  truth  is  that  if 
preparations  for  war  are  made  with  a  view 
to  attack  and  for  purposes  of  conquest,  then 
unquestionably  such  preparations  do  lead  to 
counter-preparations  on  the  part  of  the  na- 
tion against  which  the  attack  is  planned;  they 
lead  to  a  race  in  armaments,  ever  increasing 
in  magnitude,  constantly  draining  the  re- 
sources of  the  people,  creating  a  military 
caste  like  that  of  Germany,  which  steadily 
grows  more  insolent  and  insulting  in  all  its 
references  to  its  intended  adversary;  and  at 
the  same  time  creating  in  the  minds  of  the 
taxpayer  and  the  man  of  business  the  feeling 
that  the  cost  of  armament  is  greater  than 
the  probable  cost  of  war,  and  that  it  were 
better  that  the  war  should  come  and  be  done 
with  it,  and  the  air  cleared,  as  by  a  thunder- 
storm, so  that  they  can  resume  their  ordi- 
nary avocations  without  this  dreadful  night- 


12  MILITARY  SITUATION 

mare  hanging  over  them;  and  finally  the 
cataclysm,  such  as  we  are  now  witnessing, 
does  inevitably  result.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
these  preparations  are  made,  not  with  any 
purpose  of  conquest,  but  solely  to  enable  a 
nation  to  pursue  its  peaceful  development 
without  risk  of  interference  from  envious 
rivals  or  competitors;  and  if  such  preparations 
are  so  carefully  but  economically  made  (as  is 
easily  possible  in  our  case)  that  even  the 
most  powerful  nation  will  think  it  best,  on 
the  whole,  not  to  try  military  conclusions 
with  us,  then  I  assert  without  fear  of  suc- 
cessful contradiction  that  such  preparation 
does  not  invite  war  but  does,  on  the  con- 
trary, tend  to  prevent  war;  and  it  does  cer- 
tainly do  everything  that  human  foresight 
can  suggest  to  prevent  that  horrible  calamity. 
And  I  should  not  make  this  assertion  with 
such  vehemence  were  it  not  that  it  has  the 
support  of  George  Washington;  who  over 
and  over  again,  on  every  suitable  occasion 
during  the  sixteen  years  between  the  close  of 
the  Revolution  and  his  death  in  1799,  argued, 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        13 

with  his  unrivalled  wisdom  and  with  all  the 
force  of  his  strong  nature,  in  the  effort  to  con- 
vince his  countrymen  of  the  soundness  of  the 
views  which  I  have,  so  imperfectly  as  com- 
pared with  him,  attempted  to  express. 

Gentlemen,  in  these  days,  some  people,  in 
Massachusetts  and  elsewhere,  have  expressed 
the  opinion  that  Washington  was  not  only  a 
poor  soldier  but  an  indifferent  statesman;  that 
he  was  a  man  of  good  character  but  in  pub- 
lic affairs  was  not  much  more  than  a  re- 
spectable figure-head;  that  such  military  rep- 
utation as  he  gained  was  due  simply  to  the 
fatuous  mistakes  of  his  adversaries;  and  that 
his  political  reputation  was  due  to  a  skilful 
use  of  the  thoughts  of  the  great  statesmen  of 
the  period — the  two  Adamses,  Franklin,  Jef- 
ferson, and  Hamilton. 

I  do  not  share  these  views.  As  to  his  mil- 
itary reputation  and  whether  it  was  deserved 
or  not  I  have  dealt  elsewhere,  at  some  length.* 
I  believe  that  he  was  one  of  the  great  soldiers 
of  history,  and  that  if  he  had  died  within  a 

*  "  The  Revolutionary  War."   Chas.  Scribner's  Sons,  191 1. 


14  MILITARY  SITUATION 

year  after  the  battle  of  Yorktown,  and  his 
military  services  had  not  been  overshadowed 
by  his  transcendent  political  services,  this 
opinion  would  be  concurred  in  with  substan- 
tial unanimity.  And  I  believe,  also,  as  it  was 
generally  believed  throughout  the  whole  pe- 
riod of  the  nineteenth  century,  that  he  was 
the  greatest  statesman  of  all  time ;  that  his  was 
the  master  mind;  and  that  the  two  Adamses 
and  Franklin  and  Jefferson  and  Hamilton 
and  Madison  were  only  his  subordinate  coad- 
jutors in  devising  and  organizing  this  gov- 
ernment of  which  we  are  so  proud,  and  which 
for  five  generations  we  have  held  up  to  the 
world  as  a  model  of  good  government  and 
as  the  hope  of  mankind  struggling  to  free 
itself  from  the  despotism  of  the  past. 

I  beseech  you,  therefore,  with  all  the  ear- 
nestness that  I  can  command,  to  study  what 
Washington  said  and  wrote  concerning  the 
desirability  and  the  necessity  of  preparing 
for  war  in  time  of  peace.  What  he  said  on 
this  subject  forms  no  inconsiderable  part  of 
his  voluminous  writings,  which  were  collected 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        15 

and  printed  in  12  volumes  by  Sparks  in  1837, 
and  later  in  14  volumes  by  Worthington  C. 
Ford  in  1893.  His  views  on  this  subject, 
like  the  principles  of  strategy,  are  eternal. 
They  have  not  been  changed  by  steam  or 
electricity  or  the  marvellous  industrial  de- 
velopment of  the  nineteenth  century  and 
the  early  part  of  this  twentieth  century  in 
which  we  are  privileged  to  live.  They  are 
fixed  and  immutable,  far  more  so  than  the 
fabled  laws  of  the  Medes  and  Persians,  as  to 
the  nature  of  which  no  one  has  any  accurate 
knowledge.  Our  situation  in  this  year  1915 
is  as  different  from  our  situation  at  the  close 
of  the  eighteenth  century  as  it  is  possible  for 
the  human  mind  to  imagine;  but  the  writings 
of  Washington  on  this  question  of  national 
defense  are  just  as  wise,  just  as  pertinent,  just 
as  applicable  to-day  as  they  were  when  they 
were  uttered  a  century  and  a  quarter  ago.  I 
beg  of  you  to  go  to  your  public  library,  get 
the  volumes  of  Sparks  and  Ford,  and  read 
them  with  careful  attention. 
There  is  no  great  danger  in  the  present 


16  MILITARY  SITUATION 

situation,  no  danger  whatever  provided  we 
utilize  in  a  judicious  manner  a  small  portion 
of  the  enormous  resources  at  our  disposal. 
These  resources  have  hitherto  not  been  so 
utilized.  All  that  I  can  hope  to  do  this 
evening  is  to  convince  you  of  this  fact. 
Once  you  and  other  voters  are  convinced  of 
it,  there  is  no  doubt  that,  with  the  ordinary 
common  sense  which  has  always  character- 
ized this  government  of  ours  "by  the  people," 
the  proper  solution  of  the  question  will  be 
found.  Naturally,  the  subject  appeals  more 
closely  in  the  first  instance  to  the  people  who 
live  on  the  Atlantic  and  the  Pacific  Oceans, 
across  which  must  come  our  enemies  if  we 
are  ever  to  be  attacked.  But,  if  the  idea 
takes  possession  of  the  people  on  the  seacoasts 
that  this  is  a  matter  worth  thinking  about, 
the  thought  will  quite  rapidly  penetrate  to 
the  interior,  and  the  people  of  Chicago  and 
Saint  Louis  and  Kansas  City  and  Denver 
will  be  quite  as  much  interested  as  the  peo- 
ple of  New  York  and  Boston  and  Portland. 
The  inhabitants  of  the  interior  cities  will  re- 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        17 

alize  that  while  they  are  far  beyond  the 
twenty-mile  range  of  the  most  powerful  guns 
now  afloat,  yet  they  are  by  no  means  beyond 
the  range  of  the  financial  and  industrial  dis- 
aster which  will  surely  overtake  them  if  a 
landing  should  be  effected  in  the  vicinity  of 
New  York  or  Boston  or  San  Francisco,  and 
either  of  those  cities  should  be  subjected  to 
an  indemnity  levied  according  to  the  methods 
now  in  vogue. 


Any  discussion  of  our  "present  military 
situation"  necessarily  raises  the  question 
whether  there  is  any  military  situation,  and 
if  so,  why.  That  means,  in  plain  English,  Is 
there  any  such  danger  of  our  being  attacked 
either  on  the  Atlantic  coast  or  on  the  Pacific 
coast,  or  on  the  three  thousand  miles  of  Ca- 
nadian boundary  line,  that  ordinary  caution 
and  prudence,  such  caution  and  prudence  as 
we  exercise  to  prevent  a  remote  but  possible 
disaster  in  our  private  business,  make  it  in- 


18  MILITARY  SITUATION 

cumbent  upon  us  as  plain,  sensible  people  to 
take  measures,  first,  to  prevent  such  an  at- 
tack, if  it  be  in  our  power  to  prevent  it;  and 
secondly,  to  repel  the  attack,  if  we  cannot 
prevent  it,  and  to  repel  it  in  such  manner 
that  the  nation  which  undertakes  it  will 
never  attempt  it  a  second  time  ? 

There  are  some  of  my  friends  who  say  to 
me  it  is  not  wise  to  discuss  such  matters;  it 
is  injudicious  to  throw  lighted  matches  where 
there  is  so  much  loose  powder  lying  about; 
by  talking  about  these  things  we  shall  bring 
about  the  very  result  we  are  seeking  to  avoid. 
Such  is  not  my  view.  I  do  not  believe  that 
the  ostrich  has  ever  saved  its  neck  by  hiding 
its  head  in  the  sand.  This  question  of  na- 
tional defense  against  remote  but  still  possi- 
ble dangers  is  a  question  that  must  be  met 
manfully,  calmly,  prayerfully,  if  you  like;  and 
there  is  no  harm  in  talking  about  it,  no  sense 
in  attempting  to  disguise  it. 

Now,  the  only  guide  for  the  future  is  a 
study  of  the  past;  and,  before  taking  up  the 
subject  of  our  present  relations  and  possible 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        19 

future  relations  with  the  most  powerful  na- 
tions of  Europe  and  of  Asia,  I  should  like  to 
call  your  attention  for  a  moment  to  the  un- 
stable nature  of  political  alliances  and  interna- 
tional friendships.  They  are  as  shifting  as  the 
sands  of  the  desert.  At  the  present  time  our 
relations  with  Great  Britain  are  of  the  most 
friendly  and  cordial  nature.  It  seems  now 
unthinkable  that  the  two  greatest  nations 
which  speak  the  English  language  should  ever 
be  brought  into  conflict.  Yet  what  has  been 
the  history  of  English  alliances?  From  1757 
to  1763  England  was  engaged  with  France 
in  a  struggle  for  the  control  of  the  North 
American  continent  and  of  the  destiny  of 
India.  Under  the  lead  of  Chatham — to  my 
mind  the  most  far-sighted,  the  most  concilia- 
tory, and  in  every  way  the  greatest  of  English 
statesmen — "the  people  of  Massachusetts  [I 
am  quoting  from  Trevelyan's  most  fascinat- 
ing history]  taxed  themselves  to  the  amount 
of  two  pounds  in  every  three  of  their  year's 
income  for  the  defense  of  the  British  Empire. 
.  .  .    Massachusetts — so  close-fisted  against 


20  MILITARY  SITUATION 

any  attempt  to  take  her  money  without  ask- 
ing her  own  consent— gave  Pitt  £140,000  in  20 
months,  and  loaded  herself  with  debt  when  the 
yield  from  current  taxation  showed  symptoms 
of  dwmdling."  What  is  now  the  State  of 
Maine  was  then  a  part  of  Massachusetts. 
Do  you  realize  that  your  ancestors  raised  30,- 
000  men  to  fight  in  common  with  the  men 
whom  Chatham  sent  over  from  England  and 
who  decided  on  the  Plains  of  Abraham  the 
destiny  of  this  continent — that  it  was  to  be 
English  and  not  French? 

Peace  was  proclaimed  in  1763.  French  sov- 
ereignty was  forever  lost  on  this  continent  as 
well  as  in  India,  and  the  success  in  America 
was  very  largely  due  to  the  whole-hearted 
support  of  the  colonies,  and  particularly  those 
of  New  England.  Only  12  years  later  the 
men  of  Massachusetts  shot  down  the  King's 
soldiers,  to  the  number  of  73  killed  and  174 
wounded,  between  Concord  and  Boston;  be- 
cause the  royal  Governor  of  Massachusetts 
had  used  the  King's  soldiers  in  an  attempt  to 
enforce  an  Act  of  Parliament  which  taxed  them 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        21 

without  their  consent.  The  war  begun  at  Lex- 
ington lasted  eight  and  a  half  years,  the  most 
bitter,  as  it  was  certainly  the  most  disastrous, 
war  in  which  England  ever  engaged.  The 
French  were  then  America's  all-important  al- 
lies. That  war  settled  the  question  for  all 
time,  not  only  whether  the  colonists  should  be 
taxed  without  representation,  but  whether 
they  should  be  taxed  by  the  British  Parlia- 
ment at  all. 

The  Seven  Years'  War,  however  (1757-63), 
did  not  settle  the  score  between  England  and 
France.  This  was  revived  by  the  French 
Revolution,  and  for  23  years,  from  1792  to 
1815,  Great  Britain  fought  a  life-and-death 
struggle  against  Napoleon.  This  did  finally 
settle  the  differences  between  France  and  Eng- 
land, and  not  long  after  Napoleon's  down- 
fall these  two  nations  began  to  be  drawn 
together  in  commerce  and  friendship;  in  1854 
they  were  full-fledged  allies  in  a  war  against 
Russia.  England  had  by  now  become  con- 
vinced that  her  most  dangerous  rival  was  not 
France,  but  Russia,  and  that  if  Russia  should 


22  MILITARY  SITUATION 

possess  Constantinople,  she  would  have  a 
position  of  vantage  on  the  flank  of  the  route 
to  India,  and  would  use  it  to  England's  injury. 
To  prevent  this,  England,  which  had  brought 
on  the  war,  laid  down  the  cardinal  principle 
in  the  Treaty  of  Paris,  in  1856,  that  it  was 
necessary  that  the  (unspeakable)  Turk  should 
remain  in  Constantinople  and  control  the 
straits  of  the  Bosphorus  and  the  Dardanelles. 
England  induced  all  the  seven  nations  which 
signed  the  treaty,  viz.,  France,  Prussia,  Russia, 
Austria,  Sardinia,  and  Sweden,  as  well  as 
herself,  to  agree  that  they  would  "respect 
the  independence  and  territorial  integrity  of 
the  Ottoman  Empire."  By  a  separate  con- 
vention, England  induced  France  and  Austria 
to  guarantee  this  integrity  and  independence, 
and  to  consider  any  infraction  of  the  Treaty 
of  Paris  a  casus  belli. 

From  1856  until  some  time  after  Bismarck 
formed  the  Triple  Alliance  with  Austria  and 
Italy,  in  1883 — that  is  to  say,  for  the  period  of 
nearly  a  generation — this  principle  of  the  in- 
tegrity of  the  Ottoman  Empire,  as  a  means 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        23 

of  preventing  access  of  Russia  to  the  Mediter- 
ranean, was  the  foundation  and  corner-stone 
of  British  diplomacy.  But  after  the  Triple 
Alliance  had  been  formed,  France,  for  self- 
protection,  came  to  an  understanding  with 
Russia;  and  as  the  German  commerce  began 
to  spread  to  all  quarters  of  the  globe;  as  the 
German  industrial  development  began  to  in- 
crease by  leaps  and  bounds;  as  goods  "made 
in  Germany"  began  to  undersell  British-made 
goods,  not  only  in  the  distant  markets  but  also 
in  the  British  Isles  themselves;  as  Germany 
began  to  send  insulting  messages  during  the 
Boer  War,  during  the  Algerian  and  Moroccan 
developments,  and  began  to  publish  books  in 
which  England  was  spoken  of  as  a  decadent 
race,  a  land-robber,  possessed  of  an  empire 
which  it  had  not  the  courage  and  ability  to 
defend,  England  began  to  see  that  Germany 
and  not  Russia  was  her  most  dangerous  rival. 
Her  policy  then  shifted  and  she,  too,  came 
to  an  understanding  with  Russia.  To-day 
she  is  fighting  for  her  very  life,  with  Russia  as 
her  most  powerful  ally;  and  it  seems  prob- 


24  MILITARY  SITUATION 

able  that  as  a  recompense  she  will  at  the 
close  of  the  war  acquiesce  in  the  delivery 
of  Constantinople,  and  the  control  of  the 
Bosphorus  and  the  Dardanelles,  to  Russia. 

To  recapitulate,  in  the  eighteenth  century 
England  and  her  American  colonies  fought 
shoulder  to  shoulder  against  France.  A  few 
years  later  France  and  the  American  colonies 
fought  shoulder  to  shoulder  against  England. 
In  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century 
England  and  Germany  fought  against  France, 
and  later  England  and  France  fought  against 
Russia.  In  the  twentieth  century  England, 
France,  and  Russia  are  fighting  against  Ger- 
many—in the  most  colossal  of  all  wars. 

Why  is  it  that  nations  thus  shift  their  al- 
liances? The  answer  is,  because  nations  ever 
have  been,  are  now,  and  ever  will  be  guided 
in  their  dealings  with  other  nations  by  self- 
interest  and  self-interest  alone.  I  am  not 
now  speaking  my  own  opinions  only;  I  am 
again  quoting  those  of  George  Washington. 
We  Americans  have  always  been  governed  in 
our  international  dealings  by  self-interest  and 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        25 

self-interest  alone.  The  first  conspicuous  in- 
stance of  it  occurred  in  November,  1778.  A 
committee  of  Congress,  in  conjunction  with 
the  Marquis  de  LaFayette,  and  in  correspond- 
ence with  Doctor  Franklin  at  Paris,  had  drawn 
up  a  plan  for  an  attack  on  Canada,  which 
was  to  be  effected  by  the  combined  operations 
of  the  United  States  and  France.  It  was  a 
most  delicate  situation.  We  were  under  enor- 
mous obligations  to  France,  and  Washington 
had  a  peculiarly  strong  affection  for  LaFay- 
ette, whom,  in  the  absence  of  a  son  of  his 
own,  he  regarded  almost  as  his  own  son. 
The  plan  for  the  invasion  of  Canada  had 
been  made  without  consulting  Washington. 
When  he  heard  of  it  he  saw  that,  as  Canada 
was  then  denuded  of  British  troops,  the  ex- 
pedition would  in  all  probability  succeed,  and 
LaFayette  would  gain  great  renown;  but  he 
saw  with  equal  clearness  that  if  an  army 
under  LaFayette's  command  and  composed 
largely  of  French  troops  should  cross  the  fron- 
tier, descend  the  Saint  Lawrence,  meet  a 
French  fleet  at  Quebec  and  capture  that  city, 


26  MILITARY  SITUATION 

then  French  sovereignty  would  be  restored 
on  the  American  continent.  Washington  in- 
stantly wrote  to  the  president  of  Congress 
one  of  those  letters,  of  which  there  are  so 
many  in  the  twelve  volumes  of  Sparks,  the 
wisdom  of  which  seems  almost  superhuman, 
in  which  he  showed  that  if  French  troops  en- 
tered the  city  of  Quebec,  they  would  prob- 
ably never  leave  there.  This  letter  put  a 
quietus  on  the  proposed  expedition  to  Can- 
ada. In  the  letter  occurs  this  sentence,  sel- 
dom quoted,  but  to  my  mind  one  of  the  most 
profound  sayings  of  Washington,  as  true  and 
as  pertinent  in  this  twentieth  century  as  when 
it  was  written  136  years  ago:  "//  is  a  maxim, 
founded  on  the  universal  experience  of  mankind, 
that  no  nation  is  to  be  trusted  farther  than  it  is 
bound  by  its  interests;  and  no  prudent  states- 
man or  politician  will  venture  to  depart  from 

ur 

Now,  can  we  be  sure,  beyond  a  reasonable 
doubt,  that  the  interests  of  Great  Britain  and 
of  the  United  States  will  always  continue  to 
be — as  they  undoubtedly  are  now,  or  were 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        27 

until  a  few  days  ago — such  that  the  existing 
friendship  and  even  affection  shall  continue? 
Not  long  ago  a  cloud  came  on  the  horizon. 
Two  ships,  the  Dacia  and  the  Wilhelmina, 
recently  belonging  to  Germany  but  now  fly- 
ing the  flag  of  the  United  States,  sailed  for 
Europe  engaged  in  what  we  consider  to  be 
lawful  commerce.  They  sailed,  if  the  reports 
in  the  public  press  are  correct,  with  the  knowl- 
edge and  approval  of  our  government.  And 
yet  Great  Britain  courteously,  but  no  less 
firmly  and  positively,  informed  our  govern- 
ment prior  to  the  date  of  sailing  that  it  was 
her  intention  to  seize  these  ships  by  force  as 
they  approached  the  coast  of  Europe.  The 
ships  are  now  on  the  ocean,  and  I  do  not 
know  how  the  incident  will  terminate,  but  I 
need  hardly  say  that  if  Great  Britain  should 
seize  two  ships  flying  the  American  flag,  a 
situation  of  no  little  delicacy  would  arise.  I 
shall  say  no  more  of  this  because  under  ex- 
isting circumstances  the  less  said  the  better; 
but  I  think  you  ought  to  consider  whether 
in  case  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States 


28  MILITARY  SITUATION 

lock  horns  on  any  such  question  which  each 
party  considers  vital  to  its  interests,  and  if 
neither  side  yields,  then  the  friendship  of  a 
hundred  years,  of  which  we  have  recently 
talked  so  much  and  of  which  we  are  justly 
proud,  might  vanish  overnight. 

We  all  hope  and  pray  that  our  relations 
of  peace  and  friendly  competition  with  Great 
Britain  may  always  continue;  but  we  are  not 
justified  in  building  our  plans  on  hopes.  If 
England  comes  triumphant  out  of  this  war, 
she  will  not  allow  her  subjects  to  be  killed, 
and  their  property  to  be  wrecked,  in  Mexico, 
and  let  it  go  with  a  flippant  remark  that  her 
subjects  went  there  to  make  money  and  they 
took  the  risks.  That  is  not  the  way  that 
England  has  treated  her  people,  as  they  have 
spread  to  the  four  quarters  of  the  globe.  She 
will  more  probably  say  to  us:  "You  restore 
order  in  Mexico,  or  we  will."  And  if  Eng- 
land goes  to  Mexico  to  restore  order,  she  may 
not  retire,  as  we  did  from  Cuba.  So  that  we 
will  either  have  to  eat  our  Monroe  Doctrine 
or  intervene  in  Mexico  for  an  indefinite  pe- 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        29 

riod.  Nor  is  this  the  only  cloud  that  may 
come  between  our  good  friends  in  England 
and  ourselves.  If  England  comes  out  of  this 
war  victorious,  she  will  be  more  than  ever 
mistress  of  the  seas;  she  will,  with  redoubled 
energy,  seek  to  extend  her  commerce  on  every 
continent  in  order  to  recover  the  loss  and 
damage  of  the  war.  We  also  are  seeking  to 
extend  our  commerce  and  to  sell  our  manu- 
factured goods  in  every  quarter  of  the  globe. 
Therein,  according  to  the  judgment  of  our 
wisest  men  of  affairs,  lies  the  future  prosper- 
ity of  this  country.  Is  there  no  chance  that 
the  two  great  nations  may  clash  in  this  com- 
petition? Thanks  to  the  skill  of  Hamilton 
Fish  and  William  M.  Evarts,  loyally  sup- 
ported by  President  Grant,  in  1871,  we  arbi- 
trated the  Alabama  claims  with  entire  satis- 
faction to  both  sides;  later,  in  1907,  thanks 
to  the  genius  and  forensic  ability  of  Elihu 
Root,  we  arbitrated  the  fishery  disputes,  which 
had  more  than  once  brought  us  to  the  verge 
of  war  during  the  hundred  years  that  they 
had  remained  unsettled.    But  the  skill  of  Jef- 


30  MILITARY  SITUATION 

ferson,  Madison,  and  Monroe,  all  ardent  ad- 
vocates of  peace  and  of  the  futility  of  prep- 
aration for  war,  were  insufficient  to  keep  us 
from  going  to  war  with  England  in  1812  over 
the  question  of  the  impressment  of  our  sea- 
men. So  that,  looking  at  the  history  of  Eng- 
land for  the  last  160  years,  I  think  we  are 
not  justified  in  believing  that  the  present 
happy  relations  between  the  two  great  Eng- 
lish-speaking peoples  are  so  certain  to  con- 
tinue that  it  is  not  necessary  to  give  any 
thought  to  what  we  should  do  in  the  un- 
happy contingency  that  they  might  be  broken. 
It  was  Cromwell  who  said:  "Put  your  trust 
in  God  but  mind  to  keep  your  powder  dry." 
That  was  a  homely  but  sound  maxim  of  your 
ancestors.  We  no  longer  have  to  keep  our 
powder  dry,  because  we  keep  it  in  a  metallic 
case,  but  we  do  have  to  take  equally  prudent 
precautions. 

Next,  is  there  no  risk  that  Germany  may 
some  day  attack  us  ?  If  she  should  come  out 
victorious  from  this  war — which  seems  hardly 
possible,  and  yet  she  has  already  accomplished 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        31 

marvels  of  impossibility — Germany  would 
probably  not  ask  us  to  restore  order  in  Mexico, 
but  would  calmly  announce  that  she  intended 
to  restore  order  there  herself  and  did  not 
need  our  assistance  in  the  matter.  As  ancil- 
lary to  this  undertaking  she  would  promptly 
buy  from  Denmark  the  island  of  Saint 
Thomas,  which  has  the  finest  harbor  in  the 
West  Indies.  For  45  years,  since  the  first 
term  of  General  Grant's  administration,  we 
have  steadily  refused  to  purchase  it  for  our- 
selves and  as  steadily  refused  to  allow  any 
one  else  to  buy  it;  although  Denmark  has 
been  ready  and  anxious  at  every  moment 
in  that  long  period  to  sell.  The  adjacent 
island  of  Santa  Cruz,  which  she  owns,  would 
be  thrown  in  without  extra  expense,  for  both 
islands  are  of  no  use  to  Denmark,  and  the 
profits  on  their  administration  at  the  end  of 
every  year  are  written  in  red  figures.  Ger- 
many has  hitherto  respected  our  wish  that 
these  islands  should  not  be  acquired  by  any 
European  nation;  but,  if  she  is  victorious  in 
this  war,  it  needs  no  prophet  to  say  that  this 


32  MILITARY  SITUATION 

wish  of  ours  may  no  longer  be  respected.  If 
Germany  is  defeated  in  this  war,  her  wishes 
as  to  Mexico  and  the  West  Indian  islands  and 
the  Panama  Canal  will  have  to  be  postponed; 
but  let  us  not  base  any  plans  on  the  theory 
that  Germany  can  be  so  crushed  that  she 
will  never  again  undertake  offensive  military 
operations.  The  advocates  of  peace  express 
the  bloodthirsty  wish  that  this  may  be  ac- 
complished; that  the  war  may  continue  until 
Germany  is  not  only  brought  to  her  knees, 
but  so  devastated,  maimed,  and  crippled  that 
not  for  a  hundred  years  can  she  again  go  to 
war;  and  they  justify  their  wish  by  saying 
that  only  so  can  universal  peace  be  ushered  in 
and  the  United  States  of  Europe  established, 
with  an  International  Supreme  Court  sitting 
constantly  at  The  Hague  to  hear  and  decide 
their  differences  and  an  International  Army 
to  enforce  its  decrees.  But,  my  friends,  do 
not  be  deceived:  that  is  not  "in  the  womb  of 
time";  it  cannot  be  done.  When  the  war  is 
over  Germany  will  still  be  the  second  naval 
power  in  the  world,  stronger  than  ourselves 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        33 

in  battleships,  and  possessed  of  an  ocean- 
going commerce  with  a  tonnage  nearly  five 
times  as  great  as  our  own.  In  little  more 
than  one  generation,  from  1872  to  1914,  Ger- 
many has  built  up  her  merchant  marine  from 
989,000  tons  to  4,900,000  tons,  an  increase  of 
fivefold.  Germany  possesses  the  only  three 
ships  in  the  world  having  a  tonnage  each 
exceeding  50,000  tons.  The  combined  ton- 
nage of  the  Hamburg-American,  North  Ger- 
man Lloyd,  and  Hamburg  South  American 
lines  is  2,311,000.  The  combined  tonnage  of 
the  Cunard,  White  Star,  British  India,  and 
Peninsular  and  Oriental  lines  is  only  1,960,- 
000  tons.  By  far  the  greater  part  of  the 
German  tonnage  has  been  created  within  the 
space  of  a  single  generation.  The  Germans 
manufacture  ships  of  the  very  highest  quality 
at  about  60  per  cent  of  what  they  cost  us; 
they  operate  these  ships  at  an  expense  of 
about  80  per  cent  of  what  we  have  to  pay. 
So  long  as  the  scale  of  wages  continues  what 
it  now  is,  and  probably  will  continue  to  be,  in 
this  country,  there  is  no  ground  to  expect 


34  MILITARY  SITUATION 

that  we  can  ever  rival  Germany  in  the  ocean- 
carrying  trade.  Even  if  during  the  present 
war  England  should  succeed  in  practically 
destroying  all  of  the  existing  German  ships, 
neither  England  nor  any  other  nation  can 
destroy  German  efficiency,  German  stout- 
heartedness, German  brains,  and  German  in- 
dustrial skill.  If  her  whole  commercial  fleet 
is  wiped  out,  it  will  only  be  a  few  years  be- 
fore German  ships  will  again  be  seen  on  every 
one  of  the  seven  seas.  In  support  of  this 
we  have  only  to  consider  how  rapidly  France 
recovered  from  the  appalling  disasters  of  1870 
and  the  crushing  financial  burdens  which 
were  then  laid  upon  her  by  her  victorious 
opponent.  We  have  only  to  consider  the 
state  of  absolute  desolation  in  which  the 
South  found  itself  in  1865,  and  the  pros- 
perity which  it  had  already  regained  less  than 
10  years  later. 

Now,  what  are  the  German  ideas  about  the 
possibility  of  Germany's  picking  a  quarrel 
with  us  and  sending  troops  across  the  sea  to 
settle  it?    Let  me  read  you  something  from 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES       35 

a  very  interesting  little  book*  published  in 
Germany  some  years  ago,  the  publication  of 
which,  so  it  is  said,  was  suppressed  at  the 
outbreak  of  this  war;  but  a  translation  was 
recently  made  from  copies  which  escaped 
hither,  and  it  has  been  published  in  New 
York  within  the  last  few  months.  Its  author 
is  or  was  a  member  of  the  German  General 
Staff  and  the  title  of  his  book  is  "Operations 
Upon  the  Sea."  This  is  his  opinion  as  to  the 
possibility  of  operations  against  the  United 
States.    He  says  (p.  92) : 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,  Germany  is  the  only 
great  power  which  is  in  a  position  to  conquer 
the  United  States.  England  could,  of  course, 
carry  out  a  successful  attack  upon  the  sea, 
but  she  would  not  be  prepared  to  protect  her 
Canadian  provinces,  with  which  the  Amer- 
icans could  compensate  themselves  for  a  total 
or  crushing  defeat  on  the  sea.  None  of  the 
other  great  powers  can  provide  the  necessary 
transport  fleet  to  attempt  an  invasion." 

*" Operations  Upon  the  Sea.  A  Study."  By  Freiherr  von 
Edelsheim,  in  the  service  of  the  German  General  Staff  in 
1 901.  Translated  from  the  German.  New  York:  The  Out- 
door Press,  1 9 14. 


36  MILITARY  SITUATION 

And  again  (p.  86): 

"With  that  country,  in  particular,  political 
friction,  manifest  in  commercial  aims,  has  not 
been  lacking  in  recent  years,  and  has,  until 
now,  been  removed  chiefly  through  acquies- 
cence on  our  part.  However,  as  this  sub- 
mission has  its  limit,  the  question  arises  as 
to  what  means  we  can  develop  to  carry  out 
our  purpose  with  force  in  order  to  combat 
the  encroachment  of  the  United  States  upon 
our  interests.*    Our  main  factor  here  is  our 

*  Many  people  have  expressed  astonishment  that  the  Ger- 
man Government  allowed  the  publication  of  Bernhardi's 
book,  which  so  accurately  forecasted  the  events  of  last  Au- 
gust, and  similarly  as  to  this  book  of  von  Edelsheim.  The 
latter  deals  solely  with  a  military  problem,  whereas  Bern- 
hardi's "Next  War"  deals  with  many  other  than  strictly 
military  subjects;  but  as  to  military  projects  von  Edels- 
heim's  book  is  to  sea  operations  what  von  Bernhardi's  book 
is  to  land  operations.  The  officers  of  our  army  and  navy 
are  forbidden  to  discuss  such  topics  in  public,  either  in  speech 
or  writing.  How  in  the  world  did  Germany  allow  such 
books  to  be  published? 

The  answer  is  found  in  the  difference  in  the  environment. 
In  Germany  several  thousand  military  books  are  published 
every  year;  in  English-speaking  countries  several  scores 
at  the  most.  German  officers  are  encouraged  to  discuss 
military  topics,  and  they  do  not  hesitate  to  face  the  facts 
and  call  a  spade  a  spade.  Moreover,  it  is  probable  that  the 
German  Chancellor  was  often  in  need  of  Socialist  votes  to 
pass  his  appropriation  bills  for  the  army  and  navy,  and  that 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        37 

fleet.  Our  battle  fleet  has  every  prospect  of 
victoriously  defeating  the  forces  of  the  United 
States,  widely  dispersed  over  the  two  oceans. 
It  is  certain  that  after  the  defeat  of  the  United 
States  fleet,  the  great  extension  of  unprotected 
coast-line  and  [of  the]  powerful  resources  of 
that  country  would  compel  them  to  make 
peace." 

His  little  book  is  an  elaboration  of  his  ideas 
of  how  the  operations  should  be  conducted, 
in  order,  as  he  says,  "to  carry  out  our  purpose 
with  force";  and  of  an  exhortation  to  the 
members  of  the  General  Staft  and  his  other 
comrades  in  arms  not  to  neglect  this  overseas 
problem  in  the  study  of  the  many  problems 

it  was  necessary  for  them  to  be  instructed  as  to  the  "en- 
croachments" of  other  nations,  and  to  be  convinced  by  mil- 
itary experts  that  they  would  get  their  money's  worth  if 
they  voted  for  the  expenditure.  Finally,  a  possible  psycho- 
logical explanation:  When  Bismarck  represented  Prussia 
in  the  Diet  at  Frankfort,  he  conceived  the  idea  that  his  col- 
leagues who  represented  the  other  states  in  the  North  Ger- 
man Confederation  conducted  their  negotiations  by  lying 
and  deceit.  Thereafter  he  invariably  told  the  truth,  and 
thereby  outwitted  them.  The  story  is  given  by  Busch,  who 
was  to  Bismarck  as  Boswell  to  Johnson.  Possibly  Bismarck's 
disciples — not  only  the  authors,  but  the  Chancellors — acted  on 
the  same  principle. 


38  MILITARY  SITUATION 

with  which  they  are  charged,  but  to  make 
their  plans  and  to  work  out  in  time  of  peace 
all  necessary  preparations,  so  that  when  the 
transatlantic  war  begins  it  can  be  prosecuted 
with  as  much  celerity  as,  let  me  say,  the  mo- 
bilization of  August,  1914,  and  the  advance 
through  Belgium  to  the  vicinity  of  Paris.  I 
have  no  doubt  that  Freiherr  von  Edelsheim's 
advice  has  been  carefully  followed,  that  the 
project  for  a  war  with  the  United  States,  in 
successive  units  of,  say,  240,000  men  each, 
has  all  been  made,  docketed,  and  put  away  in 
the  appropriate  pigeonhole,  in  the  office  of  the 
German  General  Staff  at  Berlin,  until  it  shall  be 
called  for.  I  confess  to  an  intense  curiosity 
(which  is  not  likely  to  be  satisfied)  to  see  this 
document.  In  the  absence  of  that  I  shall 
later  on  give  you  a  summary  of  so  much  of 
Baron  von  Edelsheim's  plans  as  he  has  dis- 
closed in  his  most  interesting  little  book. 

I  dismiss  all  consideration  of  a  "war"  with 
Mexico.  Circumstances  may  make  it  neces- 
sary for  us  to  do  some  arduous,  expensive, 
and  difficult  police  work  in  that  turbulent 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        39 

country.  If  we  have  to  do  it,  it  will  be  as 
easily  within  our  means  as  was  the  settle- 
ment of  our  dispute  with  Spain  in  1898;  and 
the  result  of  pacifying  and  establishing  stable 
government  in  that  land  of  marvellous  re- 
sources which  has  been  distracted  by  revolu- 
tions throughout  the  hundred  years  since  it 
declared  its  independence  of  Spain,  will  be 
worth  far  more  than  what  it  costs;  but  it 
would  not  be  war  in  the  sense  of  what  we  are 
now  discussing. 

On  the  Pacific,  however,  there  is  a  remote 
possibility  of  war— in  my  humble  judgment, 
far  more  remote  than  the  contingency  of  war 
on  the  Atlantic  coast,  and  it  will  not  happen 
except  as  a  result  of  our  own  insolence,  our 
own  disregard  of  our  treaties,  or  our  own  in- 
ability to  compel  the  sovereign  States  which 
form  the  portion  of  our  Union  bordering  on 
the  Pacific  Ocean  to  legislate  in  conformity 
to  the  treaties  which  the  Federal  Government 
has  made.  I  reach  this  opinion,  viz.,  that 
the  possibility  of  war  with  Japan  is  in  the 
highest  degree  remote,  for  various  reasons. 


40  MILITARY  SITUATION 

In  the  first  place,  Japan  owes  her  entrance 
into  the  family  of  nations  to  us.  All  her 
statesmen,  on  all  proper  occasions,  express 
their  gratitude  for  this,  and  their  belief  that 
this  gratitude  and  its  resulting  friendship  will 
be  perpetual.  Some  people  doubt  the  sincer- 
ity of  this,  but  I  do  not.  In  the  second 
place,  the  Elder  Statesmen  who  control  the 
affairs  of  Japan  are  among  the  wisest  of  the 
men  who  guide  the  destinies  of  nations.  They 
have  no  delusions.  They  are  more  con- 
cerned with  actualities  than  with  rhetoric; 
more  interested  in  studying  facts  than  in 
making  phrases.  They  realize  that  while 
possibly  in  the  beginning  of  the  struggle  they 
might  have  an  advantage  over  us,  the  end 
of  it  would  be  disastrous  to  them.  It  would 
set  them  back  where  they  were  when  Perry 
opened  their  doors  by  the  treaty  of  March 
31,  1854.  They  are  not  willing  that  the 
enormous  strides  which  they  have  made  in 
shipping  and  foreign  commerce  and  inland 
industry  during  the  last  twenty  years,  since 
they  discharged  with  courteous  thanks  most 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES       41 

if  not  all  of  their  foreign  teachers,  shall  be 
jeopardized.  They  appreciate  that  as  to  us 
their  resources  and  wealth  are  as  dimes  to 
dollars.*  But,  on  the  other  hand,  no  prouder 
race  exists  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  no  nation 
which  has  more  venerable  traditions  of  which 
it  justly  has  the  right  to  be  proud.  Their 
courtesy  and  tact  in  dealing  with  foreign  na- 
tions lose  nothing  by  comparison  with  those 
of  the  French,  whose  language  is  the  language 
of  diplomacy.  Now,  the  Japanese  people, 
whose  influence  in  their  government  daily 
grows,  as  the  influence  of  their  statesmen  by 
comparison  relatively  diminishes,  understand 
that  in  our  government  the  Constitution  says 
that  treaties  made  in  pursuance  thereof, 
and  duly  ratified  by  a  two-thirds  majority 
of  the  Senate,  are  the  supreme  law  of  the 
land;  the  people  of  Japan,  as  self-govern- 
ment increases,  and  as  they  study  more 
and  more  the  workings  of  other  governments, 
cannot  comprehend  how,  when  a  State,  a 

*  National  wealth  of  the  United  States,  $150,000,000,000; 
national  wealth  of  Japan,  $12,000,000,000,  or  8  per  cent. — 
World  Almanac,  1915. 


42  MILITARY  SITUATION 

portion  of  the  United  States,  enacts  legisla- 
tion in  contravention  of  such  a  treaty,  all 
that  the  President  of  the  United  States  can 
do  about  it  is  to  send  his  Secretary  of  State 
out  to  make  a  speech  to  that  legislature  and 
entreat  it  not  to  enact  such  legislation;  and 
still  further,  they  cannot  appreciate  how  a 
Secretary  of  State  sent  on  such  an  errand 
should  return  with  his  errand  a  complete  fail- 
ure. Nor  do  they  think  that  it  is  their  busi- 
ness to  try  to  understand  such  relations  be- 
tween a  State  and  the  United  States  of  which 
it  is  a  part.  They  simply  stand  on  their 
treaty,  as  they  have  a  right  to;  and  they 
have  stood  there  now  for  several  years,  with 
an  exhibition  of  self-control,  of  dignity,  and 
of  confidence  in  the  righteousness  of  their 
claim  and  an  unshaken  belief  that  we  will 
make  our  word  good,  which  may  well  be  com- 
mended to  our  careful  consideration.  The 
half-educated  politicians  of  California,  when 
they  think  of  the  Japanese  as  "heathen," 
should  open  their  Bibles,  turn  to  II  Corin- 
thians 3:6,  and  ponder  carefully  what  Paul, 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        43 

the  greatest  of  all  Christian  teachers,  when 
writing  "to  obviate  the  charge  of  vainglory," 
said:  "The  letter  killeth,  but  the  spirit  giveth 
life."  The  California  legislators  have  tried 
to  "beat"  the  treaty.  Perhaps  they  have 
succeeded.  If  so,  let  them  not  imagine  that 
Japan  will  let  it  go  at  that.  Their  statesmen 
insist,  and  they  are  within  their  rights,  legal, 
equitable,  and  moral,  in  so  insisting,  that 
they  shall  be  treated  as  we  treat  other  great 
nations;  and  they  have  the  ability,  when  all 
diplomatic  methods  have  been  exhausted,  to 
compel  us  so  to  treat  them.  For  it  seems 
hardly  conceivable,  when  the  people  of  this 
country  fully  understand  this  proposition — 
as  Elihu  Root  and  James  Brown  Scott  and 
Hamilton  Holt  understand  it — that  95,000,- 
000  people  will  allow  themselves  to  be  dragged 
into  a  senseless  and  wrongful  war  at  the 
behest  of  5,000,000  people,  who  seem  to  be 
hopelessly  wrong  on  this  question. 

The  only  question  which  can  make  trouble 
between  us  and  Japan  is  the  question  of  how 
long  her  endurance  will  last,  how  long  her 


44  MILITARY  SITUATION 

self-control  will  continue.    If  war  comes  with 
Japan,  it  will  be  "made  in  America." 

I  do  not  mean  by  this  that  the  attack  will 
be  made  by  us.  If  as  a  result  of  our  supreme 
folly  in  dealing  with  Japan  as  we  do  not  deal 
with  other  nations  the  Japanese  shall  be 
goaded  into  war  with  -us  regardless  of  its 
ultimate  consequences  to  them,  the  first  blow 
would  probably  be  struck  by  Japan  before 
any  declaration  of  war;  it  would  be  dealt 
with  a  swiftness  and  a  certainty  of  which  our 
people  have  no  conception,  and  according  to 
a  definite  plan  carefully  prepared  in  advance. 
Three  days  will  see  their  battleships  in  the 
Philippines,  and  ten  days*  in  the  Hawaiian 
Islands,  unless  our  battleships  meet  and  des- 
troy theirs  on  the  way.  Their  ships  would 
not  attack  Manila  because  the  fortifications 
of  Corregidor  are  impregnable.  But  there 
are  no  fortifications  on  Lingayen  Bay  on 
the  north,  Balayan  Bay  on  the  south,  or 
Lamon  Bay  on  the  east.    A  landing  at  either 

*  The  distance  from  the  Japanese  naval  station  on  the 
Island  Sea  to  Lingayen  Gulf  is  1,400  nautical  miles,  and  to 
IJpnolulu,  3,500  nautical  miles. 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES       45 

of  these  points  presents  no  difficulties,  and 
once  landed  it  is  but  a  few  days'  march  to 
the  rear  of  Manila.  The  roads  are  excellent, 
as  good  as  those  of  New  York  or  Massachu- 
setts. I  know  about  them  because  they  have 
been  built  by  my  son,  who  is  the  Director  of 
Public  Works,  and  he  has  sent  me  many 
photographs  of  them  (with  the  automobiles 
flying  along  just  within  the  speed  limit  as 
they  do  with  us)  and  of  the  graceful  bridges 
of  reinforced  concrete  which  span  the  streams. 
Our  flag  will  not  come  down  on  Corregidor, 
but  Manila,  Cebu,  Iloilo,  and  the  other  prin- 
cipal cities  would  all  be  in  possession  of  the 
enemy  within  30  days  after  the  declaration 
of  war,  if  there  was  one,  or  the  sailing  of  the 
Japanese  battleships  through  Shimonoseki 
Straits,  if  there  was  none — unless  we  had  a 
mobile  army  large  enough  to  defeat  the  in- 
vading army;  as  a  matter  of  fact,  we  have, 
according  to  the  report  of  the  Secretary  of 
War,  9,600  men  in  the  Philippines,  and  as  a 
matter  of  opinion,  if  the  Japanese  ever  attack 
us  there  they  will  do  it  with  100,000  men. 


46  MILITARY  SITUATION 

They  have  ample  tonnage  of  ships  to  carry 
that  number. 

Similarly,  there  are  excellent  fortifications  in 
some  of  the  harbors  of  the  Hawaiian  Islands; 
but,  also,  there  are  landing-places  where  there 
are  no  fortifications  and  from  which  the  cities 
can  be  attacked  in  the  rear.  Honolulu  is 
much  nearer  to  San  Francisco  (2,089  nautical 
miles)  than  to  Kobe  or  Yokohama,  so  that 
perhaps  we  might  reinforce  our  garrison  of 
8,200  men  (provided  we  have  a  mobile  army) 
before  the  enemy  could  arrive.  But  in  any 
event  there  will  be  a  great  naval  battle  and 
probably  a  great  land  battle  before  the  fate  of 
the  Hawaiian  Islands  would  be  settled. 

So  that,  perhaps,  when  these  facts  become 
known  to  our  people  as  clearly  as  they  are 
now  known  to  the  Japanese  people,  we  may 
think  that  it  becomes  us  to  treat  the  Japa- 
nese with  the  same  politeness  that  they  treat 
us  and  that  we  show  to  other  nations. 

I  shall  say  nothing  about  Alaska,  with  its 
thousands  of  miles  of  unprotected  coast-line, 
its  enormously  valuable  coal-mines,  and  its 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES       47 

great  National  Railway,  the  construction  of 
which  is  about  to  be  undertaken.  We  have, 
according  to  the  report  of  the  Secretary  of 
War,  exactly  862  men  in  Alaska.  There  are 
no  fortifications  on  its  coast.  Nor  shall  I 
say  anything  about  the  1,200  miles  of  coast- 
line of  the  3  great  Pacific  States  of  Wash- 
ington, Oregon,  and  California.  The  princi- 
pal harbors  are  protected  by  strong,  modern, 
up-to-date  fortifications;  but  unless  we  have 
a  mobile  army  superior  to  that  of  a  possible 
invader  these  fortifications  will  not  prevent 
a  landing  between  harbors  and  the  capture 
of  one  or  more  of  the  great  cities  by  an  attack 
from  the  rear.  If  by  their  ill-considered  and 
short-sighted  legislation  the  people  of  these  3 
States  force  their  countrymen  into  an  unnec- 
essary war  with  Japan  they  will  be  the  chief 
sufferers.  I  shall  not  go  into  the  details  of 
these  matters,  which  affect  us  more  closely 
than  anything  that  can  happen  at  Manila  or 
Honolulu.  I  have  already  said  enough,  I 
think,  to  show  that  it  behooves  us  to  treat 
Japan  on  the  basis  of  the  most-favored  nation. 


48  MILITARY  SITUATION 

That  is  the  solemn  obligation  of  our  treaty. 
We  are  railing  at  others  for  breaking  their 
treaties.  Are  we  observing  our  own?  If  not, 
then  this  proud  and  sensitive  race,  under  re- 
peated provocations,  may  possibly  work  them- 
selves into  a  frame  of  mind  in  which  they  will 
prefer  national  death  to  national  dishonor; 
and  in  the  dying  they  may  deal  us  a  wound 
more  deep  than  we  now  imagine. 


And  now  having  stated,  I  fear  at  too  great 
length,  the  possibilities,  more  or  less  remote, 
of  attack  from  the  only  three  nations  whose 
attack  would  be  serious,  I  want  to  say  a  few 
words  about  the  immutability  of  man,  or  at 
least  the  approach  to  immutability  involved 
in  the  fact  that  his  nature  changes  with  such 
fabulous  slowness.  And  I  speak  of  this  be- 
cause man's  nature  is  of  fundamental  impor- 
tance in  considering  whether  there  will  be 
more  wars  in  the  near  future  or  whether,  as 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES       49 

a  result  of  the  present  unprecedented  conflict, 
universal  peace  is  a  possibility  worthy  of  prac- 
tical consideration.  Doubtless  man's  nature 
does  slowly  change,  but  only  on  the  scale 
used  by  the  Psalmist  when  he  said  that  "a 
thousand  years  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord  are 
but  as  yesterday  when  it  is  passed,  and  as  a 
watch  in  the  night."  We  hear  much  of 
"progress"  in  these  days;  but  the  human 
body  has  not  improved  in  size  nor  in  form 
since  the  days  of  Phidias;  the  human  mind 
is  certainly  not  more  acute  nor  more  pro- 
found than  it  was  in  the  days  of  Aristotle; 
the  human  heart  is  much  the  same  as  it  was 
in  the  days  of  Solomon  and  David,  three 
thousand  years  ago;  it  has  the  same  pas- 
sions, noble  and  ignoble,  the  same  lofty  as- 
pirations, the  same  frailties  and  backslidings. 
Man  is  now  and  ever  has  been,  and  I  believe 
long  will  be,  a  fighting  animal.  There  is 
great  talk  nowadays  of  arbitration,  and  un- 
doubtedly there  are  many  differences  which 
can  be  and  have  been  wisely  arbitrated;  and, 
equally  without  doubt,  there  are  many  quar- 


50  MILITARY  SITUATION 

rels  between  nations  which  cannot  be  arbi- 
trated. If  the  suggested  United  States  of 
Europe  can  be  established,  I  do  not  see  how, 
man's  nature  being  what  it  is,  civil  war 
can  with  certainty  be  prevented.  The  greatest 
United  States  which  the  world  has  ever  known, 
the  model  on  which  the  United  States  of 
Europe  must  be  patterned,  if  it  is  ever  to  be, 
had  been  in  successful  and  even  splendid  opera- 
tion for  72  years;  it  had  its  Supreme  Court 
with  well-defined  powers  and  administered  by 
jurists  of  unsurpassed  abilities;  its  Constitu- 
tion required  it  to  guarantee  to  every  State  a 
republican  form  of  government;  it  maintained 
an  army  and  a  militia  in  order  to  fulfil  its  con- 
stitutional obligation  to  suppress  rebellion, 
and  to  repress  internal  disorder  in  cases  where 
the  individual  States  were  unable  to  perform 
this  primary  function  of  all  government.  And 
yet  in  these  United  States,  whose  government 
was  rightfully  claimed  to  be  the  last  word  in  ad- 
ministration, the  highest  product  of  the  human 
mind  in  that  noblest  of  all  arts,  the  art  of  gov- 
ernment, a  Civil  War  broke  out  which  proved 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        51 

to  be  the  greatest  conflict  of  modern  times 
prior  to  the  war  now  raging  in  Europe,  and 
which  continued  until  at  the  end  of  four  ter- 
rible years  one  party  to  the  controversy  was, 
as  a  government,  absolutely  annihilated.  If 
that  happened  in  "the  best  government  on 
earth,"  administered  by  a  race  whose  knowl- 
edge and  experience  of  self-government  goes 
back  through  the  centuries  of  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence,  British  Parliament,  and 
Magna  Charta  to  the  Witenagemot  which  the 
Angles  brought  from  the  Rhine  to  Britain  in 
the  fifth  century,  how  can  a  new  and  loosely 
formed  confederation,  composed  of  peoples 
who  speak  five  different  languages,  who  range 
the  whole  gamut  of  civilization  from  the  high- 
est art  and  literature  to  the  lowest  depth  of 
ignorance  and  backwardness,  whose  laws  are 
drawn  from  entirely  different  roots  of  thought, 
and  whose  religions,  among  those  of  them 
who  still  have  any  religious  belief  at  all,  have 
nothing  in  common  except  a  very  diversified 
belief  in  Jesus  Christ — how  can  such  a  loosely 
formed  confederation  expect  to  be  immune 


52  MILITARY  SITUATION 

from  civil  war?  The  suggestion  is  made  that 
the  nations  shall  disarm,  except  for  an  inter- 
national army  which  shall  enforce  the  decrees 
of  the  court  at  The  Hague.  The  futility  of 
this  is  evident.  In  1861  both  the  North  and 
South  were  disarmed.  Before  the  end  of  the 
year  a  million  and  a  half  were  fighting  in  the 
ranks. 

No,  gentlemen,  it  does  not  look  as  if  this 
scheme  of  the  United  States  of  Europe  had 
been  thoroughly  thought  out.  I  fear  it  will 
not  work;  that  it  is  an  "iridescent  dream/' 

As  to  the  ability  and  competence  of  man 
to  decide  such  fundamental  differences  as 
have  brought  on  this  greatest  of  all  conflicts: 
I,  for  one,  do  not  undertake  to  pass  judgment 
upon  the  motives  of  the  nations  now  at  war, 
nor  to  attempt  to  decide  which  of  them  is 
right  and  which  of  them  is  wrong  in  their  con- 
tentions. I  do  not  believe  that  it  is  within 
the  scope  of  finite  intelligence  to  decide  such 
a  deep-rooted  controversy.  But  I  do  be- 
lieve that  it  is  within  the  scope  of  Infinite 
Intelligence  to  pass  upon  the  merits  of  the 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES       53 

dispute,  and  to  decide  it  aright.  There  are 
some  people  old-fashioned  and  simple-minded 
enough — I  am  one  of  them — to  believe  that 
there  is  a  God  of  Battles,  who  uses  war  as 
an  agency  to  accomplish  his  beneficent  pur- 
poses, and  to  settle  disputes  which  man,  un- 
aided, cannot  settle.  Where  would  we  have 
been  in  a  court  of  arbitration,  if  there  had 
been  one,  in  1775,  when  we  shot  down  the 
King's  soldiers?  And  in  1776,  when  we  de- 
clared our  independence?  Parliament  had 
the  right  to  tax  us  without  representation,  if 
it  was  foolish  enough  to  do  so.  But  courts 
of  arbitration,  like  other  courts,  must  deal 
with  rights,  as  they  exist  in  law  or  equity; 
such  courts  cannot  take  into  consideration 
any  "higher  law,"  or  any  aspirations  for  free- 
dom. If  we  had  appealed  to  a  court  of  arbi- 
tration at  that  time,  we  should  have  been 
non-suited,  and  summarily  thrown  out  of 
court.  What  carried  us  into  war  was  sym- 
pathy with  Patrick  Henry's  declaration: 
"  Give  me  liberty  or  give  me  death !"  Courts 
of  arbitration  do  not  take  cognizance  of  any 


54  MILITARY  SITUATION 

such  appeals.  If  our  quarrel  with  our  kins- 
folk in  Great  Britain  had  been  arbitrated, 
we  should  surely  have  lost,  and  we  would 
to-day  be  British  colonies  like  Canada  and 
Australia.  Does  any  one  seriously  claim  that 
that  would  be  better  than  our  present  status, 
or  that  the  struggle  of  the  eight  long  years 
of  the  Revolution  was  not  worth  all  that  it 
cost  in  blood  and  treasure? 

Similarly,  in  1861,  if  there  had  been  a 
Hague  Court  and  the  North  and  the  South 
had  gone  there  to  plead  their  differences,  the 
North  would  have  said:  We  are  opposed  to 
the  extension  of  slavery;  and  the  South  would 
have  answered:  That  issue  has  already  been 
settled  in  the  Dred  Scott  case  by  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States.  The  North 
would  have  said:  We  are  in  favor  of  the  main- 
tenance of  the  Union  and  of  compelling  States 
to  remain  in  the  Union  against  their  will;  the 
South  would  have  replied:  Read  your  Con- 
stitution; show  us  any  article  in  it  which 
authorizes  you  to  compel  us  to  stay  in  the 
Union  when  we  want  to  go  out;  as  wit- 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        55 

nesses,  we  cite  Madison,  who  was  so  largely 
instrumental  in  drawing  up  the  Constitution, 
and  Jefferson,  who  took  so  prominent  a  part 
in  putting  it  into  operation;  does  any  one 
know  better  than  they  what  the  Constitution 
means?  And  what  did  they  say  about  it  in 
1798? 

Does  any  rational  man  believe  that  the 
North  would  have  won  its  case  in  such  an 
arbitration?  The  question  answers  itself. 
But  in  the  terrible  war  which  followed,  the 
North  did  win  its  case;  and  the  South  is  now 
as  enthusiastic  as  the  North  in  acquiescing 
in  the  decision  made  by  the  dread  arbitra- 
ment of  war. 

Again,  in  1898  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States  passed,  without  a  dissenting  voice,  a 
joint  resolution  reading  as  follows:  "The  Gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States  does  hereby 
demand,  that  the  Government  of  Spain  at 
once  relinquish  its  authority  and  government 
in  the  Island  of  Cuba  and  withdraw  its  land 
and  naval  forces  from  Cuba  and  Cuban  wa- 
ters/'   Suppose  we  had  sent  our  most  em- 


56  MILITARY  SITUATION 

inent  jurists  to  The  Hague  and  had  asked 
for  a  decree  that  the  international  police 
force  be  sent  to  Cuba  to  enforce  this  demand, 
what  would  the  great  lawyers  of  England, 
France,  Germany,  Russia,  and  other  coun- 
tries, sitting  in  the  beautiful  Palace  of  Peace, 
have  said  to  our  plea  ?  They  must  of  neces- 
sity have  decided  that  our  plea  was  prepos- 
terous. In  that  case  Cuba,  Porto  Rico,  and 
the  Philippines  would  have  continued  under 
Spanish  misgovernment,  and  the  colonial 
system  of  Spain  would  still  be  tottering  in 
its  decrepitude.  Does  any  one  believe  that 
that  would  have  been  a  better  solution  than 
the  solution  which  was  brought  about  by 
war,  under  which  the  peoples  in  these  islands 
are  now  well  advanced  on  the  high  road  of 
self-government,  prosperity,  and  happiness? 
And  as  for  the  losses  in  battle  during  those 
brief  but  all-important  one  hundred  days, 
they  were  no  greater  than  the  number  killed 
and  injured  on  our  own  railroads  during  the 
same  period. 
Turn  again  to  1846.    If  ever  there  was  a 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        57 

war  conceived  in  sin  and  bora  in  iniquity,  it 
was  the  war  with  Mexico.  If  we  had  tried 
to  arbitrate  this,  we  would  not  have  had  a 
leg  to  stand  on;  and  yet  through  the  work- 
ings of  an  inscrutable  and  Divine  Providence, 
this  wicked  war  resulted  in  bringing  good 
government  throughout  a  territory  of  almost 
untold  wealth,  about  1,000,000  square  miles 
in  extent,  now  inhabited  by  nearly  10,000,000 
of  contented  people;  whereas  but  for  the 
war  this  vast  territory  would  now  be  in  a 
state  of  anarchy  and  chaos,  similar  to  that 
which  exists  to-day  in  the  contiguous  states 
of  Chihuahua  and  Sonora. 

Finally,  it  is  possible,  though  by  no  means 
certain,  and,  in  fact,  quite  doubtful,  that  if  we 
had  arbitrated  our  quarrel  with  Great  Britain 
in  1812  we  might  have  won  our  case;  but 
it  was  not  our  grievances  against  Great  Britain 
— the  impressment  of  our  seamen,  the  occu- 
pation of  our  western  posts,  and  the  inter- 
ference with  our  commerce  through  paper 
blockades  and  preposterous  "Orders-in-Coun- 
cil" — just  as  these  grievances  undoubtedly 


58  MILITARY  SITUATION 

were,  which  drove  us  into' war.  It  was  the 
fiery  speech  of  young  Henry  Clay  on  his 
accession  to  the  Senate  at  the  age  of  34, 
by  which  he  swept  Madison,  an  ardent  ad- 
vocate of  peace,  and  the  whole  country  off 
their  feet,  by  stating  that  we  had  a  right  to 
demand  that  Great  Britain  should  relinquish 
her  sovereignty  over  any  and  all  parts  of  this 
continent;  that  our  citizen  soldiers  would 
cross  the  frontier  at  Niagara  and  Plattsburg, 
march  down  the  Saint  Lawrence  to  Quebec, 
brushing  aside  the  Canadians  and  the  few 
soldiers  which  in  the  agony  of  her  conflict 
with  Napoleon  Great  Britain  could  then  send 
to  Canada,  and  at  Quebec  we  would  dictate 
a  peace  which  would  forever  dispose  of  any 
pretensions  of  Great  Britain  to  exercise  au- 
thority on  this  continent.  Henry  Clay  proved 
a  bad  prophet;  and,  in  the  treaty  which  he 
himself  signed  at  Ghent  100  years  ago  last 
month,  not  only  did  Great  Britain  retain 
her  sovereignty  in  Canada,  which  she  still 
maintains,  but  not  one  of  the  things  for 
which  we  went  to  war  was  so  much  as  men- 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        59 

tioned  in  the  treaty/Nevertheless,  Great 
Britain  did  at  an  early  day  evacuate  our 
posts,  and  she  never  again  attempted  to  im- 
press our  seamen  or  to  issue  "Orders-in-Coun- 
cil"  designed  to  destroy  our  foreign  com- 
merce. The  result  of  the  War  of  1812  was 
to  give  us  commercial  freedom,  as  the  Revo- 
lution had  given  us  political  freedom. 


In  addition  to  the  questions  of  arbitration, 
and  of  man's  nature  as  affecting  the  prob- 
ability of  war,  I  desire  for  a  moment  to  call 
your  attention  to  the  relative  advantages  for 
its  inhabitants  of  a  great  and  powerful  na- 
tion as  compared  with  a  small  nation  which 
cannot  indulge  in  the  extravagance  of  great 
armaments. 

A  very  able  book  was  written  a  few  years 
ago  by  Norman  Angell  called,  "The  Great 
Illusion."  Thousands  of  copies  of  it  have 
been  sold,  it  has  been  translated  into  several 
foreign  languages,  and  must  have  had,  as 


60  MILITARY  SITUATION 

it  deserved,  several  million  readers.  It  was 
written  from  the  economic  standpoint,  and 
was  intended  to  prove  that  war  does  not  termi- 
nate the  dispute;  that  private  property  still 
exists  in  a  conquered  province;  that  the  pay- 
ment of  the  huge  indemnity  by  France  to 
Germany  was  of  benefit  to  France  rather 
than  to  Germany,  because  Germany  spent 
the  money  in  wasteful  extravagance  which 
brought  on  a  financial  panic,  whereas  France 
by  enforced  economy  and  her  traditional 
thrift  soon  got  the  money  back  in  payment  for 
the  products  of  her  industry;  that  not  many 
years  later  France  was  able  to  loan  huge 
sums  to  Germany  and  in  the  Moroccan  crisis 
she  called  her  German  loans  and  forced  Ger- 
many to  settle  that  question  in  accordance 
with  her  views.  In  support  of  his  theory, 
which  many  men  of  the  first  rank  in  finance 
and  business  have  pronounced  unanswerable, 
he  quoted  the  prices  of  national  securities 
and  cited  the  fact,  which  at  that  time  was 
indisputable,  that  the  bonds  of  the  smaller 
countries  like  Switzerland  and  Denmark  and 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES       61 

Sweden  which  were  not  wasting  their  re- 
sources in  ruinous  armaments  commanded  a 
far  higher  price  in  the  markets  of  the  world 
than  those  of  Germany,  France,  or  England. 
He  argued  that  the  might  and  power  of  these 
nations  created  an  illusion;  and,  in  particular, 
he  cited  the  case  of  Belgium,  whose  bonds  then 
sold  at  a  higher  price  than  those  of  any  other 
nation  in  Europe.  He  referred  to  this  hive  of 
industry,  whose  people  lived  contentedly  with- 
out a  great  army  and  with  practically  no 
navy,  the  neutrality  of  their  state  and  the 
stability  of  their  government  guaranteed  by 
the  three  great  nations,  and  he  proved  to  his 
own  satisfaction,  and  that  of  thousands  of 
readers,  that  the  condition  of  the  Belgian, 
whose  government  did  not  aspire  to  rule  one- 
sixth  or  one-fourth  of  the  people  of  the  world 
and  did  not  have  to  maintain  the  great  na- 
vies and  armies  which  are  necessary  to  such 
a  position,  was  far  happier  in  every  way  than 
that  of  the  groaning  taxpayer  in  the  larger 
countries. 
His  whole  argument  rested  on  the  corner- 


62  MILITARY  SITUATION 

stone  of  the  inviolability  of  treaties,  and  alas ! 
when  in  August  the  neutrality  treaties  be- 
came mere  scraps  of  paper  and  were  thrown 
to  the  wind  in  what  were  supposed  to  be  the 
exigencies  of  a  great  power,  at  the  beginning 
of  its  campaign,  his  whole  thesis  fell  to  the 
ground  like  a  house  of  cards.  There  are  no 
quotations  now  on  Belgian  bonds,  except  such 
as  are  guaranteed  by  England;  and  private 
property  in  Belgium  has  almost  ceased  to  exist, 
burned  up  and  battered  down  by  a  mighty 
conqueror. 

Following  the  fashion  of  the  day,  Mr.  An- 
gell  invented  a  phrase  in  order  to  attract  at- 
tention to  his  thoughts:  "The  Great  Illu- 
sion.' '  The  sad  fact  is  that  Mr.  Angell  was 
himself  the  victim  of  an  illusion,  to  wit:  that 
treaties  are  sacred  and  inviolable.  Few  wars 
have  been  fought  that  did  not  involve  the 
violation  of  antecedent  treaties. 

I  trust  that  I  have  given  you  some  ground 
to  doubt  whether  this  much-vaunted  arbitra- 
tion is  the  cure-all  that  its  friends  claim; 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        63 

whether  the  fortune  of  being  part  of  a  small 
neutralized  state  is  as  good  as  it  was  thought 
to  be;  and — man's  nature  being  substan- 
tially what  it  has  been  for  at  least  3,000 
years,  and  what  it  will  long  continue  to  be 
— whether  war  is,  or  soon  will  be,  a  thing 
of  the  past.  We  have,  therefore,  a  "military 
situation"  in  these  United  States,  to  wit: 
It  is  conceivable  that  we  may  be  attacked  by 
one,  or  possibly  by  two,  of  three  great  powers. 
In  case  through  their  fault  or  through  ours 
— and  we  are  not  always  or  inevitably  free 
from  fault  in  our  dealings  with  other  nations 
— a  conflict  should  arise,  how  would  they  go 
about  it,  and  what  would  or  should  we  do 
to  repel  the  attack  and  successfully  maintain 
our  side  of  the  controversy? 

The  issue,  in  the  first  instance,  would  de- 
pend upon  the  control  of  the  sea.  Great 
Britain  now  maintains  a  navy  of  size  and 
force  equal  to  that  of  any  other  two  nations 
combined,  Germany  and  the  United  States 
included.  In  my  judgment  this  condition 
will  continue  during  the  longest  life  of  the 


64  MILITARY  SITUATION 

youngest  of  children  now  born.  When  Eng- 
land ceases  to  maintain  such  a  navy  her  name 
will  no  longer  be  England,  but  some  synonym 
for  Venice,  Spain,  or  Holland,  each  of  which 
in  turn  was  at  one  time  mistress  of  the  seas. 
We  are  no  longer  the  second  naval  power,  but 
the  third;  and  if  the  views  of  the  arbitration- 
ists  prevail,  we  shall  soon  be  the  fourth  or 
fifth.  In  any  event,  we  cannot  expect  to 
have  a  larger  navy  than  Germany.  If,  in 
some  controversy  about  the  Panama  Canal 
or  our  foreign  commerce,  the  self-interest  of 
Great  Britain  and  the  self-interest  of  Germany 
should  coincide,  and  should  be  adverse  to  the 
self-interest  of  the  United  States,  then  these 
two  nations  would  unite  to  coerce  us;  they 
would  again  be  allies  as  they  were  under 
Chatham  and  under  his  great  son,  the  younger 
Pitt.  In  that  event  we  should  be  opposed  by 
a  naval  force  more  than  three  times  as  great 
as  our  own,  and  should  be  hopelessly  out- 
classed. The  allies  would  have  no  trouble 
in  crossing  the  ocean  and  selecting  such  a 
point  for  landing  as  the  General  Staffs  of  the 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        65 

two  countries  should  decide  to  be  most  fa- 
vorable to  their  plans.  If  Great  Britain 
alone  should  be  our  antagonist  in  a  conflict 
which  the  resources  of  diplomacy  and  arbitra- 
tion could  not  prevent,  there  would  be  prac- 
tically the  same  result,  for  I  cannot  conceive 
that  we  shall  ever  have  a  navy  as  large  as 
Great  Britain  must  have.  If  Germany  alone 
should  attack  us,  we  might  be  inferior  at 
sea;  in  any  event  the  best  we  could  hope  for 
would  be  to  fight  the  German  navy  on  equal 
terms.  We  might  be  defeated  in  such  an 
engagement;  and,  if  we  were  victorious,  we 
would  be  so  crippled  that  the  control  of  the 
sea  would  not  be  in  our  hands,  even  if  it  was 
not  in  the  hands  of  the  Germans. 

Until  this  war  no  German  battleship  had, 
so  far  as  I  know,  been  engaged  in  battle.  The 
German  navy  has  no  splendid  traditions  such 
as  the  British  navy  has  in  Trafalgar,  the  Nile, 
Copenhagen,  and  Saint  Vincent's,  no  names 
of  great  naval  commanders  on  the  pages  of 
its  history  like  those  of  Nelson,  Jervis,  Howe, 
Collingwood,  Keppel,  and  Rodney.    But  in 


66  MILITARY  SITUATION 

this,  Germany's  first  naval  war,  she  has  set 
a  new  record  in  the  feats  of  submarines  and 
cruisers;  and  in  the  battles  of  the  south  Pa- 
cific, the  south  Atlantic,  and  the  North  Sea 
she  has  shown  that  she  is  no  mean  antagonist 
for  England.  The  natives  of  the  Baltic  and 
North  Sea  provinces  have  sailed  the  seas  for 
centuries;  they  are  good  seamen  in  every 
sense  of  the  word.  The  great  commercial 
ships  of  Germany  are  navigated  with  a  skill, 
and  commanded  with  a  discipline,  not  excelled 
by  any  other  nation  in  the  world.  If  any  one 
thinks  that  the  Germans  cannot  fight  on  the 
sea  as  well  as  they  do  on  the  land,  he  makes  a 
great  mistake. 

I  assume,  therefore,  that  if  the  Germans 
ever  attempt  to  cross  the  Atlantic  with  an 
army,  they  will  succeed.  Will  they  be  able 
to  land?  First,  let  me  correct,  or  endeavor 
to  correct,  a  popular  error  in  regard  to  the 
function  performed  by  the  modern  fortifica- 
tions which,  thanks  to  the  sound  judgment 
and  wise  advice  of  Samuel  J.  Tilden,  now 
protect  all  our  great  cities.    They  have  been 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        67 

built  at  a  cost  of  nearly  $160,000,000,  and  have 
been  more  than  20  years  in  the  building. 
They  do  adequately  serve  their  purpose  of 
protecting  these  great  cities — your  own  among 
them — from  attack  by  sea.  Without  them, 
the  battleships  of  any  foreign  nation  could 
approach  the  harbor  of  Portland  or  any  other 
harbor,  send  their  torpedo-boats  ahead  to 
sweep  the  channels  clear  of  mines,  as  the  Coast 
Survey  vessels  now  sweep  the  harbors  to  find 
submerged  rocks,  and  forthwith  capture  the 
city  without  any  loss  to  themselves.  These 
fortifications  being  in  existence,  armed  with 
the  most  modern  cannon,  and  manned  by  a 
sufficient  number  of  skilled  gunners,  this  thing 
cannot  be  done.  But  from  Portland  to  Ports- 
mouth there  is  a  stretch  of  about  50  miles  in 
which  there  are  no  fortifications;  from  Ports- 
mouth to  Boston,  a  similar  stretch;  from  Bos- 
ton around  to  Newport,  a  still  longer  piece  of 
unfortified  coast;  from  Montauk  Point  to 
Coney  Island  and  from  Sandy  Hook  to  Cape 
May,  similar  stretches  of  sandy  beach,  each 
more  than  100  miles  in  length,  in  which  there 


68  MILITARY  SITUATION 

are  no  fortifications,  and  no  possibility  of  put- 
ting on  these  long  sand  strips  any  guns  of 
size  to  match  those  of  battleships.  The  near- 
est city  in  the  United  States  to  the  mouth  of 
the  Kiel  Canal  is  your  own  city  of  Portland. 
Suppose  that  the  German  General  Staff  should 
decide  that,  all  things  considered,  Portland 
would  be  the  best  place  to  attack  in  the  first 
instance  with  a  view  to  establishing  a  naval 
base  in  your  fine  and  capacious  harbor.  They 
would  not  come  to  Portland  direct,  but  would 
go,  say,  to  Kennebunkport,  where  last  sum- 
mer I  have  seen  the  sea  as  calm  as  the  Great 
Lakes;  land  there,  quickly  seize  the  rail- 
roads at  Kennebunk,  West  Kennebunk,  and 
Sanford  so  as  to  prevent  any  United  States 
troops  from  coming  from  Boston,  and  then 
march  down  the  fine  automobile  road — less 
than  a  2  days'  march— attack  Portland  from 
the  rear,  capture  it,  and  seize  your  prin- 
cipal citizens  as  hostages  for  the  payment 
of  a  large  indemnity;  as  was  recently  done 
in  Brussels  and  other  Belgian  cities.  Would 
not  that  be  an  interesting  "military  situa- 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        69 

tion  "  ?  Some  people  may  think  that  it  would 
be  difficult  to  land  from  the  open  ocean  on 
an  open  beach.  Listen  to  what  our  friend 
von  Edelsheim  has  to  say  on  that  subject 
(p.  62):  "Military  history  shows  that  an  at- 
tempt to  prevent  a  really  bold  landing  is 
never  successful."  When  I  first  read  this 
dictum  I  was  disposed  to  question  its  ac- 
curacy, but  in  looking  back  at  the  list  of 
overseas  expeditions  during  the  last  140  years 
I  can  find  no  case  which  disproves  his  state- 
ment. In  the  days  of  sailing-ships,  Howe 
landed  on  Long  Island  in  1776,  Napoleon 
landed  in  Egypt  in  1778,  and  Scott  landed 
at  Vera  Cruz  in  1847.  In  the  days  of  steam, 
the  English,  French,  and  Sardinians  landed 
in  the  Crimea  in  1854,  the  troops  of  the 
United  States  landed  on  Cuba,  Porto  Rico, 
and  the  Philippines  in  1898,  the  allies  landed 
at  Taku  in  1900;  and  there  have  been  various 
minor  landings  during  the  last  140  years. 
I  do  not  believe  that  von  Edelsheim's  dogma 
can  be  successfully  disputed. 
Let  me  at  once,  however,  allay  your  ap- 


70  MILITARY  SITUATION 

prehensions  by  saying  that  I  do  not  believe 
that  the  German  General  Staff  would  select 
Portland  as  their  point  of  attack.  I  believe 
that  they  would  instantly  strike  at  the  vitals 
of  our  trade,  commerce,  industrial  and  finan- 
cial system — that  is,  at  New  York.  Pending 
an  inspection  of  the  overseas  project — which, 
as  I  have  previously  said,  is  doubtless  quietly 
reposing,  docketed  and  indexed,  in  its  proper 
pigeonhole  in  the  office  of  the  General  Staff 
in  Berlin — I  venture  to  suggest  that  this  is 
the  plan  which  would  probably  be  adopted: 
viz.,  a  fleet  of  transports  composed  of  ships 
not  less  than  10,000  nor  more  than  50,000 
tons  in  size,  with  speed  of  not  less  than  18 
knots,  properly  escorted  by  battleships  and 
scout  cruisers,  and  carrying  about  15  divi- 
sions— say,  240,000  infantry,  with  the  proper 
complement  of  artillery,  cavalry,  and  engi- 
neers— and  having  on  the  decks  of  these 
ships  an  ample  supply  of  aeroplanes,  would 
sail  from  Bremerhaven,  Cuxhaven,  Hamburg, 
Gliickstadt,  Emden,  and  Kiel,  and  in  about 
10  days — longer,  perhaps,  if  there  was  a  great 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        71 

naval  battle  on  the  way — would  arrive  off  the 
Long  Island  coast  somewhere  between  Mon- 
tauk  Point  and  Coney  Island,  and  probably 
quite  near  those  beautiful  houses  where  some 
of  my  dearest  friends  live  at  Southampton. 
The  ground  would  be  reconnoitred  by  the 
aeroplanes,  and  then  the  torpedo-boats,  the 
scout  cruisers,  and  in  the  background  the 
battleships,  would  close  in  toward  the  shore 
and  with  their  guns  protect  the  landing. 
Once  landed,  the  march  would  begin  for  Long 
Island  City;  and  unless  we  had  a  mobile  army 
of  at  least  equal  strength,  equally  trained, 
and  commanded  by  equally  skilful  officers, 
this  march  would  not  take  more  than  4 
days.  Arrived  in  the  boroughs  of  Queens  and 
Brooklyn,  it  is  possible  that  our  people  would 
destroy  those  splendid  bridges  crossing  the 
East  River,  which  have  been  constructed  at 
an  expense  of  $89,400,000,  and  which  are  the 
admiration  of   engineers   the   world   over.* 


*  Brooklyn  Bridge,  $22,400,000;  Manhattan  Bridge,  $26,- 
000,000;  Williamsburg  Bridge,  $23,100,000;  Queensboro 
Bridge,  $17,900,000. — World  Almanac,  1914. 


72  MILITARY  SITUATION 

If  the  bridges  should  be  destroyed,  the  pas- 
sage over  to  Manhattan  would  be  delayed,  but 
not  stopped.  There  are  no  forts  between 
Staten  Island  and  Fort  Schuyler  (where  the 
East  River  joins  Long  Island  Sound),  a  dis- 
tance of  more  than  20  miles,  nor  is  it 
possible  to  have  any  forts  in  this,  the  most 
densely  populated  spot  on  the  face  of  the 
globe.  The  passage  of  the  East  River  would 
present  no  great  difficulties;  and,  once  in  Man- 
hattan, discreet  officers  would  at  once  be  sent 
to  find  John  D.  Rockefeller,  Andrew  Carnegie, 
J.  P.  Morgan,  George  F.  Baker,  Jacob  H. 
Schiff,  Frank  A.  Vanderlip,  W.  K.  Vander- 
bilt,  Henry  C.  Frick,  Vincent  Astor,  and 
Harry  Payne  Whitney;  or,  if  these  men  were 
no  longer  living,  they  would  seek  those  who,  at 
the  time  of  the  invasion,  would  occupy  the 
commanding  position  in  the  world  of  affairs 
which  these  gentlemen  now  fill.  These  ten  men 
would  be  taken  in  military  automobiles  to  the 
headquarters  of  the  commanding  general  and 
there  placed  in  close  confinement  until  they 
signed  a  bond,  conditioned  upon  the  payment, 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        73 

either  by  the  city  of  New  York  or  by  the 
United  States,  or  by  both,  of  an  indemnity 
of  not  less  than  $5,000,000,000;  say,  about 
twice  the  cost  of  our  Civil  War,  exclusive  of 
pensions.  Would  they  sign  it  ?  Most  assur- 
edly they  would.  They  are  all  astute  men 
of  affairs,  and  it  would  be  bad  business  for 
them  to  do  anything  else.  The  indemnity  of 
$5,000,000,000  compared  with  the  resources 
of  the  United  States  at  the  present  time 
would  not  be  excessive,  as  compared  with  the 
indemnity  of  $1,000,000,000  which  France 
was  compelled  to  pay  in  1871.*  And  yet, 
to  the  last  day  of  his  life,  Bismarck  re- 
gretted that  he  had  not  made  Thiers  sign 
for  more. 

You  all  know  the  story  of  dear  old  Blucher, 
that  hot-headed  but  simple-minded  old  man 
(he  was  then  73  years  old)  who  helped 
Wellington  to  win  the  battle  of  Waterloo. 
After  Napoleon  had  been  sent  to  Saint  Hel- 

*  According  to  Mulhall,  the  national  wealth  of  France  in 
1870  was  $34,652,000,000.  The  World  Almanac  for  1915 
gives  the  national  wealth  of  the  United  States  at  $150,000,- 
000,000. 


74  MILITARY  SITUATION 

ena,  Blucher  came  to  England  as  the  guest 
of  the  nation,  and  in  accordance  with  the 
usual  custom  he  was  given  the  freedom  of 
the  City  of  London  in  a  gold  box  and  invited 
to  a  dinner  at  the  Mansion  House.  He  rode 
in  the  carriage  with  Wellington  along  the  old 
established  route  from  Westminster,  past  Traf- 
algar Square,  where  the  Nelson  column  and 
Landseer's  splendid  lions  were  not  yet  in  place, 
but  where  the  pathetic  statue  of  Charles  I  had 
already  been  erected — a  statue  as  pathetic 
as  the  fate  of  poor  Charles  himself — then  on 
through  the  Strand,  past  Somerset  House, 
the  Temple  and  the  Inns  of  Court,  with  all 
their  wealth  of  historical  associations,  to 
Temple  Bar — where  not  even  the  Sovereign 
of  England  might  pass  without  the  consent 
of  the  Lord  Mayor — on  through  Fleet  Street, 
redolent  with  the  memories  of  John- 
son, up  Ludgate  Hill  and  past  Saint  Paul's, 
whose  splendid  dome  and  massive  founda- 
tions were  as  impressive  then  as  now;  around 
Saint  Paul's  churchyard,  through  Cheapside 
and  the  Poultry  to  Mansion  House  Square. 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES       75 

As  they  rode  along  through  the  applauding 
multitudes  which  lined  the  streets,  doubtless 
Wellington — although  there  was  not  much  of 
the  sentimental  in  his  make-up — pointed  out 
to  Blucher  the  historical  memories  and  the 
associations  of  these  ancient  thoroughfares. 
All  this  made  no  impression  upon  Blucher; 
but  when  he  arrived  in  sight  of  the  Bank  of 
England,  the  Stock  Exchange,  and  the  Man- 
sion House,  he  was  filled  with  awe  at  the  vi- 
sions of  such  wealth;  his  face  lighted  up  as 
he  turned  to  Wellington  and  exclaimed:  "  Was 
fur  Plunder!" — What  a  place  for  loot  !*  And 
yet  the  entire  value  of  all  London  from  the 
Abbey  to  the  Bank,  in  1815,  was  less  than 
the  value  of  the  property,  real  and  personal, 
fixed  and  incorporeal,  within  half  a  mile  of 
the  United  States  subtreasury  on  Manhattan 
Island. 

*  It  is  so  many  years  since  I  first  heard  this  story  that  I 
cannot  remember  its  origin.  I  do  not  vouch  for  its  accuracy, 
but  I  have  heard  it  so  many  times,  told  by  men  who  had 
passed  much  of  their  life  in  London,  and  it  so  accords  with 
Bliicher's  well-known  character  and  early  life,  that  I  can- 
not but  believe  that  it  has  some  foundation  in  fact.  At  all 
events  e  ben  trovato. 


76  MILITARY  SITUATION 

Yes,  you  can  be  very  sure  that  the  ten  hos- 
tages would  sign  the  bond.* 

I  fancy  I  hear  some  one  say  under  his 
breath:  What  a  fantastic  picture !  as  baseless 
as  the  fabric  of  a  dream.  No !  if  we  are  not 
adequately  prepared  for  defense  it  is  no  more 
fantastic  than  the  fate  of  Belgium,  no  more 
baseless  than  the  destruction  of  Louvain. 
Let  us  consider  for  a  moment  what  actually 
happened  to  Belgium.  German  mobiliza- 
tion began  on  August  1,  German  troops  en- 
tered Belgium  on  August  3,  Liege  was  cap- 
tured on  August  7,  the  Germans  entered 
Brussels  on  August  20,  they  crossed  the 
French  frontier  on  August  23,  Louvain  was 
destroyed  on  August  26,  and  on  September 
1  the  German  army,  having  swept  across  Bel- 
gium, was  within  25  miles  of  Paris.    In  just 

*  I  cannot  help  wondering — and  I  hope  I  may  say  it  without 
giving  offense  to  Mr.  Carnegie,  for  whom  I  have  profound 
regard  and  who,  unlike  Sidney  Smith's  friend,  needs  no  sur- 
gical operation  to  get  a  joke  into  his  head — whether  the  canny 
Scot,  should  he  be  alive  at  the  time  of  the  invasion  and  be 
one  of  the  ten,  as  he  took  his  pen  in  hand  to  affix  his  sig- 
nature to  the  bond,  would  still  hold  fast  to  the  doctrine  which 
he  has  enunciated  in  a  recent  interview,  that  "  War  never  set- 
tles anything." 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        77 

31  days,  therefore,  out  of  a  state  of  profound 
peace,  Belgium  had  been  practically  des- 
troyed. How  did  this  catastrophe  happen? 
Simply  because  Belgium  is  only  about  one- 
tenth  of  Germany  in  size  and  resources;  and 
her  allies  were  not  sufficiently  prepared  to 
come  to  her  relief  in  time  to  save  her  from 
destruction.  You  will  say  that  this  could 
not  happen  to  us,  because  of  our  immense 
resources  and  because  of  the  ocean  which 
separates  us  from  the  nations  of  Europe.  As 
to  the  first,  there  is  no  easier  mark  than  a 
rich  nation  unprepared  for  defense.  As  to 
the  second,  the  ocean  was  a  great  barrier  in 
the  days  of  sailing-ships,  but  its  value  as  a 
bulwark  of  defense  has  greatly  diminished 
with  the  advent  of  steam  and  electricity. 
The  German  troops  were  across  the  Belgian 
frontier  in  2  days;  the  German  transports 
could  not  reach  Long  Island  in  less  than  10 
or  12  days.  That  is  the  only  difference. 
The  mobilization  on  the  Belgian  frontier 
took  only  48  hours;  the  mobilization  in  the 
Baltic  and  North  Sea  harbors  would  take  no 


78  MILITARY  SITUATION 

longer.  Our  interesting  friend,  von  Edels- 
heim,  has  figured  it  all  out  in  a  general  way 
and  doubtless  his  comrades  of  the  General 
Staff  have  elaborated  it  in  greater  detail. 
Let  me  again  read  you  a  few  extracts  from 
his  book.  On  page  34,  speaking  of  the  Ger- 
man harbors,  he  says:  "Bremerhaven  is  by 
far  the  best.  In  every  respect  it  would  take 
first  place  for  embarkation,  because  of  its 
extensive  wharves.  From  this  point  2  or 
more  divisions  could  be  shipped  daily  without 
difficulty.  Cuxhaven  is  not  so  well  situated, 
but  its  connection  with  Hamburg  is  impor- 
tant. If  it  were  brought  up  to  full  develop- 
ment it  could  take  care  of  2  divisions  a 
day,  which  Hamburg  could  well  supply. 
Gluckstadt  is  an  especially  important  base 
because  most  of  our  live-stock  exporting  busi- 
ness is  carried  on  there.  It  is  recommended 
that  a  short  double-track  railroad  be  built 
from  Elmshorn  to  Gluckstadt,  making  a  con- 
nection with  the  reserve-corps  frontier.  In 
Gluckstadt  1  infantry  division  and  part  of 
a  cavalry  division  can  be  shipped  [daily]." 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        79 

In  another  part  of  his  book  he  states  the 
well-known  fact  that  a  German  infantry 
division  numbers  16,000  men.  You  will  see, 
therefore,  that  he  has  figured  it  out  that  6 
divisions,  96,000  men,  can  be  embarked  in 
one  day,  or  240,000  men  in  two  and  a  half 
days.  I  do  not  believe  that  our  General 
Staff  in  Washington  or  any  other  military 
experts  who  are  familiar  with  the  German 
army  will  dispute  the  accuracy  of  his  compu- 
tation. In  another  part  of  his  book  (p.  55) 
he  has  given  at  length  his  reasons  for  be- 
lieving that  10  infantry  divisions  and  1 
cavalry  division  can  be  despatched  in  4 
days.  The  number  of  ships  and  tonnage 
space  for  artillery  and  cavalry  horses  are 
all  set  forth.  For  instance  (p.  50):  "Three 
ships  would  accommodate  2  cavalry  bri- 
gades." There  would  be  no  lack  of  ships. 
The  fleet  of  the  Hamburg  line  alone  measures 
1,168,000  tons,  and  of  the  North  German 
Lloyd  795,000  tons.  And  if  these  are  not 
enough,  the  harbors  of  Amsterdam,  Rotter- 
dam, Antwerp,  and  Copenhagen  are  close  at 


80  MILITARY  SITUATION 

hand;  and  the  events  of  last  August  do  not 
warrant  us  in  believing  that  any  question  of 
neutrality  would  prevent  the  seizure,  if  need 
be,  of  the  shipping  that  crowds  their  docks. 
Euphemistically  von  Edelsheim  uses  the  fol- 
lowing language  (p.  37) : 

"The  problem  of  ship  control  would  at 
best  fall  to  the  loading  commission,  which 
should  be  settled  upon  as  an  established  au- 
thority to  make  a  comprehensive  survey  and 
appraise  the  German  steamers  for  military 
transporting.  This  commission  should  also 
list  the  foreign-owned  steamers  which  might  be 
available  in  the  harbors  for  use  in  emergencies. 
Through  close  commercial  relations  this  control 
can  be  extended  to  neighboring  foreign  ports 
(Amsterdam,  Rotter  dam,  Copenhagen),  to  the 
end  that  we  might  charter  several  large  foreign 
steamers"* 

If  the  neutral  owners  did  not  wish  to  char- 
ter their  steamers,  the  Kaiser's  dreadnoughts 
would  be  close  at  hand  to  persuade  them. 
But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  this  would  not  be 

*  The  italics  are  mine. 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        81 

necessary,  for  Germany  has  an  ample  number 
of  ships  of  her  own  available  at  any  time  to 
embark  240,000  infantry,  with  the  correspond- 
ing numbers  of  artillery,  cavalry,  and  engi- 
neers, and  their  necessary  munitions,  stores, 
and  provisions.  Edelsheim  again  has  it  all 
figured  out  (p.  47) : 

"The  troop  transport  capacity  of  a  ship 
has  heretofore  been  calculated  by  the  ship's 
tonnage,  that  is,  60  per  cent  of  the  ship's  ca- 
pacity is  net  ton  loading-space.  The  neces- 
sary space  for  us,  for  a  long  sea  voyage,  is 
set  at  2  tons  for  each  man,  and  6  to 
7  tons  for  each  horse.  The  English  and 
Russian  estimates  are  about  the  same.  But 
the  English  transports  to  Cape  Town  accom- 
modated a  larger  number  of  troops  than  was 
thought  possible,  and  the  American  trans- 
ports to  Cuba  were  increased  by  one-third." 

On  this  basis  the  15  divisions,  num- 
bering 240,000  infantry,  would  require  480,- 
000  net  tons,  or  800,000  tons  of  ship's  capac- 
ity, and  the  accompanying  artillery,  cavalry, 
stores,  and  provisions  would  take  as  much 


82  MILITARY  SITUATION 

more;  or,  in  all,  ships  of  a  gross  capacity  of 
1,600,000  tons.  This  is  less  than  the  ton- 
nage of  the  Hamburg-American  and  North 
German  Lloyd  lines;  but,  in  addition  to  these 
two  lines,  the  tonnage  of  the  other  lines  under 
the  German  flag  is  nearly  three  times  as 
great,  the  total  of  German  tonnage  as  given 
in  the  statistical  books  for  1914  being  4,892,- 
410.  I  can  personally  testify  that  his  esti- 
mate of  1  man  for  every  2  tons  net  is 
substantially  correct;  for  in  1898  I  com- 
manded the  second  expedition  to  the  Philip- 
pines, which  consisted  of  the  10th  Pennsyl- 
vania, 1st  Nebraska,  and  1st  Colorado,  Vol- 
unteers, the  18th  and  23d  Infantry  of  the 
regular  army,  2  batteries  of  field-artillery  from 
Utah,  and  half  a  company  of  regular  en- 
gineers, numbering  in  all  about  4,800  men. 
We  had  four  transports — improvised  from 
mail-steamers  plying  on  the  Pacific — the  larg- 
est of  which  had  a  gross  tonnage  of  5,000  and 
the  smallest  1,500.  The  total  tonnage  was 
about  12,500.  Sixty  per  cent  of  this  is  7,500 
tons.    With  4,800  men  on  board  we  were 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES       83 

stowed  at  the  rate  of  about  1  man  for  each 
IK  net  tons;  and  we  were  not  uncomfortably 
crowded  as  we  slowly  steamed  across  the  Pa- 
cific in  echelon  formation  at  8  cable-lengths, 
our  speed  governed  by  the  speed  of  the  slowest 
ship,  which  was  only  9  knots,  so  that  we  were 
32  days  covering  the  7,000  or  more  nautical 
miles  from  San  Francisco  to  Manila  Bay.  If 
we,  in  our  state  of  almost  total  unpreparedness 
in  1898,  could  raise  a  volunteer  army,  impro- 
vise transports  from  ships  which  were  not  (as 
are  those  of  Germany)  built  with  special  ref- 
erence to  the  transport  of  troops  and  liable 
under  their  subsidy  agreements  to  be  taken 
instantly  when  needed  as  transports,  cross  a 
continent  of  3,000  miles  by  rail,  traverse 
7,000  nautical  miles  of  ocean,  and  make  a 
successful  landing,  under  the  protection  of 
the  navy's  guns,  within  a  short  distance  of 
the  Spanish  forts  and  trenches — all  within 
the  space  of  82  days  from  the  declaration 
of  war;  and  within  27  days  thereafter,  under 
the  protection  of  146  guns  on  Dewey's  squad- 
ron, assault  and  capture  an  army,  which 


84  MILITARY  SITUATION 

though  small  in  numbers  was  larger  than  that 
of  the  assailants,  and  with  it  the  capital  of 
the  Spanish  dominions  in  the  Far  East, 
thereby  terminating  forever  the  Spanish  co- 
lonial system  in  the  Orient  which  had  existed 
for  more  than  300  years — if,  I  say,  we,  al- 
most ludicrously  unready  for  war  in  1898, 
could  do  this,  is  it  to  be  supposed  that  Ger- 
many, with  her  plans  studied  out  long  in  ad- 
vance, with  her  enormous  tonnage  of  fast 
ships,  her  troops  in  instant  readiness,  with 
no  continent  to  cross  and  an  ocean  of  barely 
3,000  miles  instead  of  7,000  separating  her 
from  her  opponent — is  it  to  be  supposed,  I 
say,  that  Germany  could  not  bring  240,000 
infantry  with  the  corresponding  numbers  of 
artillery  and  cavalry  to  our  shores  in  from 
12  to  15  days?  No  soldier  who  has  studied 
the  question  will  deny  that  Germany  can  do 
this;  and,  as  I  have  previously  pointed  out, 
all  history  shows  that  the  landing  could  not 
be  prevented. 

I  fancy  some  one  asking  me:  Do  you  really 
and  seriously  believe  that  Germany  could  ac- 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        85 

tually  capture  New  York  in  the  manner  you 
have  described?  And  I  answer:  No,  I  do  not. 
But  the  only  reason  why  I  do  not  believe  it 
is  because  I  am  confident  that  the  people  of 
this  country,  with  their  strong  common  sense, 
when  they  understand  this  proposition,  will 
see  to  it  that  their  representatives  in  Congress 
provide  a  mobile  army  of  sufficient  size,  suf- 
ficiently trained,  with  an  adequate  reserve, 
and  with  a  proper  number  of  highly  educated 
officers;  and  that  we  shall  have  an  abundance 
of  scout  aeroplanes  which  can  constantly 
reconnoitre  the  ocean  within  a  range  of  at 
least  200  miles  from  the  coast  so  as  to  give 
warning  of  the  enemy's  approach.  With  our 
admirable  railway  system  we  could  concen- 
trate our  mobile  army — if  we  had  one — op- 
posite the  point  selected  for  the  landing.  And 
I  should  expect  this  mobile  army — if  we 
had  one — to  attack  the  invading  army  as 
soon  as  the  latter  passed  out  of  the  range  of 
the  guns  on  its  ships,  defeat  it,  and  drive  it 
back  in  disorder  to  within  the  range  of  these 
guns,  and  with  no  alternative  save  a  hasty 


86  MILITARY  SITUATION 

re-embarkation  under  their  protection,  before 
a  storm  came  up  to  disperse  the  fleet.  And 
so  the  whole  expedition  would  end  in  failure 
— like  the  failure  to  capture  Paris  on  or  be- 
fore August  26.  If  these  things  did  not  hap- 
pen— if  we  did  not  have  a  mobile  army,  if 
that  army  did  not  defeat  the  invading  army 
as  soon  as  it  landed — then  the  capture  of  New 
York  and  the  levy  of  a  colossal  indemnity 
would  be  as  certain  as  any  event  in  the  future. 
It  is  proper,  however,  to  point  out — and 
this  is  the  whole  purpose  of  my  address — that 
we  do  not  at  this  moment  possess  such  a  mo- 
bile army.  We  have  no  reserve,  we  have  an 
insufficient  number  of  highly  educated  of- 
ficers. The  General  Staff  of  the  army  has 
asked  for  these  things  year  after  year,  with- 
out serious  attention  being  paid  to  its  recom- 
mendations and  advice.  The  Secretary  of 
War  in  his  last  annual  report — a  document 
of  rare  sanity,  calmness,  close  reasoning,  and 
an  adequate  appreciation  of  the  actual  facts 
— has  stated  what  is  necessary  to  make  a 
start  in  the  right  direction.    I  am  leaving 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        87 

with  you  a  number  of  these  reports,  and  I 
beg  you  to  read  them  with  as  much  care  as 
you  study  the  balance-sheets  of  your  business. 
If  his  advice  is  disregarded  too  long,  your  bal- 
ance-sheets may  not  be  worth  the  studying. 
His  programme  is  a  modest  one. 

The  Secretary  says  (p.  7):  "The  Regular 
Army  of  the  United  States  on  June  30, 1914, 
consisted  of  4,701  officers  and  87,781  men 
(including  quartermaster  corps,  3,809,  and 
hospital  corps,  4,055).  Of  these,  758  officers 
and  17,901  men  belong  to  the  coast  artillery, 
and  are  therefore  practically  stationary  in 
coast  defenses;  1,008  officers  and  18,434  men 
belong  to  the  staff,  technical  and  noncombat- 
ant  branches  of  the  army,  including  recruits 
and  men  engaged  in  recruiting.  This  leaves 
the  army  which  can  be  moved  from  place  to 
place — that  is,  the  mobile  army,  so  called — 
composed  of  2,935  officers  and  51,446  men." 

He  goes  on  further  to  show  that  we  had, 
on  June  30,  1914,  in  the  Philippines,  9,600 
men;  in  the  Hawaiian  Islands,  8,200  men;  in 
the  Canal  Zone,  2,200  men;  in  China,  Alaska, 


88  MILITARY  SITUATION 

and  Porto  Rico,  2,400  men,  and  in  Vera 
Cruz,  4,100  men;  or  in  all,  26,500  men  on 
service  outside  of  the  continental  limits  of 
the  United  States.  Of  these  about  4,000  be- 
long to  the  coast  artillery,  and  22,500  to  the 
mobile  army.  I  quote  again  from  the  Sec- 
retary's report  (p.  7) : 

"Practically  all  these  organizations  in  the 
United  States  are  on  what  is  known  as  a 
peace  footing,  which  means  that  an  infantry 
company,  which  upon  a  war  footing  should 
have  150  men,  now  has  65  men;  a  cavalry 
troop,  which  upon  a  war  footing  should  have 
100  men,  now  has  71  men;  an  artillery  bat- 
tery, which  upon  a  war  footing  should  have 
190  men,  now  has  133  men.  The  coast  ar- 
tillery companies  are  always  kept  on  a  war 
footing  of  104  men  each. 

"  In  addition  to  work  with  the  troops  them- 
selves, the  officers  of  the  army  are  called  upon 
to  do  a  great  variety  of  work  known  as  de- 
tached service.  For  instance,  the  engineers 
have  66  officers  detached  for  river  and  harbor 
work,  and  the  other  branches  of  the  army 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        89 

have  578  officers  of  the  line  detached  for  serv- 
ice in  training  the  organized  militia  of  the  sev- 
eral States,  on  duty  at  schools,  recruiting,  etc. 

"As  a  result,  scarcely  any  unit  in  the  army 
ever  has  its  proper  complement  of  officers, 
and  the  need  for  an  increase  of  officers  is 
urgent  and  imperative.  In  continental  United 
States  we  had  in  the  mobile  army  on  June  30, 
1914,  1,495  officers  and  29,405  men* 

"We  have  a  reserve — that  is,  men  who 
have  been  trained  in  the  army  and  under  the 
terms  of  their  enlistment  are  subject  to  be 
called  back  to  the  colors  in  time  of  war — con- 
sisting of  16  men." 

Now,  "the  wayfaring  men,  though  fools," 
can  understand  that  we  cannot  expect  to 
resist  successfully  an  invasion  of  240,000  men 
with  an  army  of  29,405  men. 

What  does  the  Secretary  of  War,  realizing 
the  responsibility  which  goes  with  his  great 
office,  propose  to  do  in  order  to  rectify  this 
glaring  state  of  unpreparedness  ?  His  propo- 
sition, as  I  have  previously  stated,  is  ex- 

*  The  italics  are  mine. 


90  MILITARY  SITUATION 

tremely  modest.  I  quote  again  from  his  re- 
port (pp.  10-11),  and  though  the  quotation  is 
long,  I  do  not  apologize  for  taking  up  your  time 
with  it,  for  it  is  the  nub  of  the  whole  matter: 

"My  recommendation  of  what  we  should 
immediately  do  is  to  fill  up  the  existing  or- 
ganizations which  compose  the  aggregate  mo- 
bile army  force  just  mentioned  to  their  full 
strength.  This  would  require  25,000  men. 
In  addition  to  the  enlisted  men  just  men- 
tioned, we  should  be  authorized  to  obtain 
1,000  more  officers.  The  legislation  to  ac- 
complish these  purposes  would  be  of  the  very 
simplest  character,  being  merely  authoriza- 
tions to  the  department  to  do  these  things. 

"On  June  30,  1914,  20.43  per  cent  of  the 
line  officers  of  the  army  were  away  from  their 
commands.  This  results  in  depleting  the 
proper  quota  of  instructors  in  the  army.  The 
instruction  of  the  organized  militia  suffers 
wofully  from  the  lack  of  officers  available  for 
service  with  the  militia.  Efficient  officers, 
above  all  things,  cannot  be  improvised.  De- 
pending, as  we  are,  upon  a  small  regular  force, 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES       91 

and  contemplating  a  large  expansion  in  time 
of  war,  it  is  essential  that  we  at  least  should 
not  permit  the  number  of  officers  to  fall  be- 
low that  number  which  is  absolutely  requi- 
site for  the  proper  performance  of  current 
military  duties. 

"An  increase  of  the  enlisted  personnel  of  the 
army  by  25,000  men  would  accomplish  three- 
fold results.  It  would,  as  before  mentioned, 
bring  up  to  full  strength  the  existing  units  of 
the  mobile  army  in  continental  United  States, 
and  thus  supply  a  more  adequate  force. 
Second,  it  would  afford  training  for  the  of- 
ficers in  the  command  of  such  units  as  they 
must  command  in  time  of  war  and  would 
prevent,  as  far  as  the  regular  army  is  con- 
cerned, the  crowding  of  the  ranks  with  raw 
levies  which  always  disorganize  and  render 
inefficient  the  organizations  into  which  they 
come.  Third,  it  would  be  a  wise  investment 
from  the  standpoint  of  economy,  in  that  no 
material  increase  of  overhead  charges  would 
be  necessary,  and  the  addition  of  these  men 
could  be  effected  at  a  per-capita  cost  to  the 


92  MILITARY  SITUATION 

government  of  about  one-third  the  per-capita 
cost  of  existing  conditions.  Since  the  exist- 
ing physical  plant  and  the  administrative  or- 
ganization would  not  have  to  be  in  any  way 
increased  to  take  care  of  this  increased  force, 
the  only  additional  expense  would  be  the 
clothing,  feeding,  and  paying  thereof. 

"By  the  time  these  25,000  men  could  be 
procured  the  mobile  forces  in  the  United 
States,  as  hereinbefore  pointed  out,  would 
number  24,602;  so  that  after  the  addition 
the  mobile  army  in  continental  United  States 
would  consist  of  49,602  men. 

"With  the  army  thus  increased,  we  would 
then  be  able  to  undertake  the  next  necessity, 
which  is  absolutely  imperative,  and  that  is 
the  preparation  of  a  reserve.  The  present 
legislation  with  respect  to  a  reserve  has 
proven  utterly  useless  for  the  purpose,  it  hav- 
ing produced  in  24  months  only  16  men,  and 
there  is  little  or  no  hope  that  it  will  ever 
properly  accomplish  its  purpose.  The  reasons 
why  it  will  not  do  so  it  is  not  profitable  to 
discuss. 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        93 

"Again,  without  attempting  to  wait  until 
perfection  has  been  reached,  it  seems  to  me 
that  it  is  only  the  part  of  wisdom  to  do  that 
which  we  know  will  produce  a  beneficial  re- 
sult, and  one  that  approximates  the  best.  I 
am  firmly  convinced  that  if  we  can  use  the 
standing  army  as  a  school  through  which  to 
pass  men  who  come  into  it,  with  the  knowl- 
edge that  if  they  are  proficient  they  can  be 
discharged  at  any  time  after  a  year  or  18 
months,  we  will  begin  at  once  to  build  up 
the  necessary  reserve,  and  will,  for  the  first 
time  in  the  military  history  of  this  country, 
have  something  approximating  a  balanced 
organization.  There  is,  unfortunately,  oppo- 
sition to  this  policy.  I  say  'unfortunately* 
because  it  is  always  the  part  of  wisdom,  it 
seems  to  me,  to  select  the  best  that  is  pos- 
sible, out  of  what  is  obtainable,  rather  than 
to  reject  that  obtainable  best  because  it  is 
not  perfection.  Some  of  the  opposition  is  on 
economical  grounds,  and,  in  my  view,  should 
not  be  determinative  if  the  other  considera- 
tions that  I  have  noted  are  true.    Other  of 


94  MILITARY  SITUATION 

the  opposition  is  based  upon  the  idea  that 
1  year  or  18  months  is  not  sufficient  to  train 
a  soldier.  As  to  this,  it  is  a  curious  exhibi- 
tion of  mental  operations  to  realize  that 
those  who  make  this  argument  and  who  have 
to  acknowledge  that  without  reserves  we  must 
depend  upon  volunteers,  are  constantly  as- 
serting that  we  can  safely  rely  upon  volun- 
teers because  they  can  be  thoroughly  trained 
in  6  months.  It  is  furthermore  true  that 
by  intensive  military  training  any  young  man 
of  good  health  and  average  mentality  can 
be  made  a  serviceable  soldier  in  12  months, 
and,  in  fact,  has  been  so  made.  This  has 
been  tried  abroad,  and  I  have  caused  it  to 
be  tried  under  my  own  administration  and 
inspection.  Even  if  there  were  doubt  about 
it,  it  would  not  cause  a  different  conclusion 
to  be  reached  by  a  reasonable  man,  because 
we  certainly  would  be  better  off  with  a  re- 
serve of  men  who  had  had  1  year's  train- 
ing than  we  are  without  any  reserve  at  all, 
and  having  to  depend,  as  we  do,  upon  men 
who  have  never  had  any  training  whatever. 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        95 

I  caused,  about  a  year  ago,  recruits,  as  they 
came  in,  and  without  selection,  to  be  organ- 
ized into  a  battery  of  artillery,  a  troop  of 
cavalry,  and  a  company  of  infantry;  and 
from  my  own  observation  and  from  the  re- 
ports of  experts,  each  of  these  units,  well 
within  a  year,  was  found  proficient  to  a  very 
high  degree. 

"I  am  therefore  firmly  convinced  that  we 
should  have  immediate  legislation  dealing 
with  the  matter  of  enlistment  and  reserve. 
I  am  not  so  much  concerned  with  the  length 
of  the  enlistment,  provided  the  Secretary  of 
War  is  given  power  to  discharge  into  the  re- 
serve, at  the  end  of  12  months,  those  who 
have  shown  themselves  proficient  up  to  a 
required  standard." 

That  is  the  whole  programme  at  the  pres- 
ent moment.  I  again  repeat  that  it  is  most 
modest.  There  will  be  other  things  to  come 
later — summer  camps  of  university  students 
like  those  which  were  so  splendidly  success- 
ful last  summer  at  Burlington  and  elsewhere; 
instruction  in  the  rudiments  of  the  military 


96  MILITARY  SITUATION 

art  at  public  schools,  colleges,  and  universi- 
ties; arrangements  by  which  every  young 
man  in  this  great  land  of  ours  shall  hold  in 
his  hand  before  he  is  21  years  of  age  an 
army  rifle,  and  aim  and  fire  it  at  a  target; 
enlargement  of  the  Military  Academy  at  West 
Point,  and  when  it  reaches  the  point  when  it 
can  no  longer  be  enlarged,  without  injury  to 
its  unique  system  of  instruction,  then  found 
another  West  Point  on  the  Pacific  coast,  and 
subsequently,  if  needed,  a  third  in  the  Mis- 
sissippi valley;  improvement  of  the  militia, 
and  recognition  of  the  great  services  which 
the  men  in  the  militia  render  by  giving  up 
to  their  military  duties  time  which  would 
otherwise  be  spent  in  recreation — all  these 
will  come  in  due  time,  and  their  cost  will  be 
but  a  trifle  compared  with  the  benefits  which 
they  will  produce.  But  for  the  present  the 
only  thing  to  do  is  to  get  squarely  behind 
this  modest  programme  of  the  secretary 
of  War,  and  see  that  your  representa- 
tives in  Congress  enact  it  into  law  be- 
fore Congress  adjourns  on  the. fourth 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        97 

DAY  OF  NEXT  MARCH,  WHICH  IS  ONLY  40 
DAYS  FROM  THIS  DATE. 

Gentlemen  of  the  Economic  Club,  I  sup- 
pose that  it  is  fair  for  me  to  assume  that 
when  you  asked  me  to  address  you  on  this 
subject  you  considered  me  competent  to  dis- 
cuss it,  and  to  give  you  advice  at  the  end  of 
the  discussion.  What  advice  have  I  to  give  ? 
Simply  this:  this  great  subject  is,  above  all 
others,  non-partisan.  A  week  ago  to-day  I 
sat  beside  the  Secretary  of  War  at  lunch,  and 
at  the  close  of  the  lunch  listened  to  a  great 
speech  from  him.  I  say  it  was  a  great  speech, 
because  it  was  so  calm,  so  forceful,  so  clearly 
reasoned  out,  so  absolutely  convincing  to 
every  one  of  his  hearers,  so  entirely  devoid  of 
hysteria.  The  speech  was  made  in  the  Re- 
publican Club  of  the  City  of  New  York,  of 
which  I  have  been  a  member  since  before  the 
time  when  my  hair  began  to  turn  gray.  The 
audience,  which  packed  the  room  to  the  walls, 
was  composed  of  hidebound  Republicans;  the 
speaker  was  a  Democratic  Secretary  of  War. 
He  was  received  with  tumultuous  applause 


98  MILITARY  SITUATION 

at  the  beginning;  and,  though  he  spoke  with- 
out notes,  his  thought  was  so  logical,  so  con- 
cise, so  free  from  dogmatism,  so  absolutely 
unanswerable,  that  the  applause  at  the  close 
was,  I  may  fairly  say,  overwhelming. 

Now,  what  is  there  to  do  for  you  men  here 
in  Maine?  First  of  all,  keep  this  question 
strictly  non-partisan.  I  fear  the  partisanship 
of  an  overzealous  gentleman  from  Massa- 
chusetts has  already  lessened  the  chances 
of  getting  the  desired  legislation  at  this  ses- 
sion of  Congress.  Partisanship  has  no  place 
in  any  question  which  extends  beyond  the 
ocean's  edge.  Next,  get  the  Secretary's  re- 
port and  read  it;  ponder  over  it.  His  mil- 
itary advisers  give  their  whole  lives  to  this 
question.  They  are  men  of  good  repute, 
they  are  very  able,  they  do  not  want  war, 
which  will  make  their  wives  widows  and  their 
children  orphans.  But  they  know  what  their 
duty  is,  and  they  fearlessly  do  it.  It  is  to 
tell  the  Secretary  truthfully  what  the  real 
situation  is,  as  derived  from  their  lifelong  and 
constant  study  of  it,  based  on  data  and  in- 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES        99 

formation  possessed  by  no  other  body  of  men 
in  this  country  to  an  equal  degree. 

The  Secretary  was  new  to  this  problem  2 
years  ago.  He  frankly  says  that  he  is  now 
ashamed  of  the  ignorance  which  he  then  pos- 
sessed, and  which  is  the  ignorance  of  the 
average  highly  educated  lawyer  or  business 
man  of  to-day.  But  he  has  said  that  he 
means  from  now  on  to  try  by  every  proper 
means  to  remove  this  ignorance  in  others. 
He  brought  to  the  problem  a  trained  legal 
mind,  accustomed  to  forming  judgment  upon 
important  legal  questions  during  the  years 
that  he  sat  on  the  bench  of  the  New  Jersey 
Court  of  Appeals.  He  has  given  2  years  of 
study  to  tmVcase,  longer  than  he  ever  gave 
to  any  case  which  came  before  him  on  the 
bench.  He  has  now  given  you  his  matured 
conclusions — first  a  statement  of  the  actual 
facts  and  then  a  synopsis  of  the  measures 
which  in  his  judgment  are  necessary  to  meet 
this  state  of  facts. 

With  the  increasing  complexity  in  our  af- 
fairs we  are  obliged  every  year  more  and 


100         MILITARY  SITUATION 

more  to  intrust  questions  of  great  importance 
to  referees,  masters  in  chancery,  and  other 
experts,  for  examination  and  report;  and 
when  we  get  their  reports,  unless  they  con- 
tain some  glaring  error,  we  adopt  them  and 
put  them  into  operation.  No  question  has 
been  so  thoroughly  examined  by  experts  of 
the  highest  competence  as  this  question  of 
national  defense,  beginning,  as  I  have  said, 
40  years  ago  by  General  Sherman  and  con- 
tinued by  his  successors  in  command  of  the 
army — Sheridan,  Schofield,  and  Miles — and 
especially  in  recent  years  by  the  younger  men 
of  the  General  Staff,  which  was  not  in  exist- 
ence prior  to  1903.  The  result  of  40  years' 
study  is  now  before  you,  condensed  and  sum- 
marized and  brought  up  to  date  by  the  dis- 
tinguished lawyer  who  now  holds  the  office 
of  Secretary  of  War.  Can  you  do  better  than 
follow  his  advice  ? 

If  you  approve  it,  then  see  that  it  is  carried 
into  effect.  Whenever  the  voters  of  this 
country  make  up  their  minds  on  any  question, 
Congress  is  quick  to  respond  to  their  wishes. 


IN  THE  UNITED  STATES      101 

There  is  need  for  prompt  action.  Congress 
will  adjourn  in  less  than  6  weeks.  Your 
Legislature  meets  only  biennially,  but  for- 
tunately it  is  now  in  session.  See  that  peti- 
tions are  sent  to  it,  bearing  thousands  of 
names,  requesting  the  Legislature  to  pass 
without  delay  a  joint  resolution  instructing 
your  senators  and  representatives  in  Con- 
gress to  vote  in  favor  of  the  adoption  of  the 
Secretary's  recommendations.  They  have  al- 
ready been  incorporated  in  the  Army  Ap- 
propriation Bill.  Last  night  they  were  de- 
feated in  the  House;  Monday  morning  they 
will  be  before  the  Senate,  where  they  have 
been  already  favorably  reported  from  the 
Military  Committee. 

There  used  to  be  a  saying  in  my  youth: 
"As  goes  Maine,  so  goes  the  Union."  Since 
you  no  longer  have  October  elections,  this 
saying  is  not  now  heard.  But  the  men  of 
Maine  are  just  as  hard-headed,  just  as  full 
of  plain  common  sense,  as  they  were  when  you 
held  your  national  elections  in  October.  If 
such  a  joint  resolution  is  passed  by  the  Legis- 


102         MILITARY  SITUATION 

lature  of  Maine,  it  will  be  noted  the  following 
morning  by  every  State  Legislature  which  is 
in  session  from  New  Hampshire  to  Arizona, 
and  from  Washington  to  Florida. 

"Thrice  is  he  armed  that  hath  his  quarrel 
just."  Thus,  in  Shakespeare's  incomparable 
words,  meditated  Henry  VI  just  after  he  had 
witnessed  the  violent  quarrel  of  Warwick  and 
Suffolk  over  the  blood-stained  corpse  of  mur- 
dered Gloucester.  Five  centuries  have  gone. 
Henry  Plantagenet  and  Richard  of  York,  War- 
wick and  Suffolk  and  Gloucester  are  but  dust. 
Their  quarrels,  save  for  Shakespeare,  are  less 
than  dust.    Still  is  it  true,  as  then  it  was. 

Thrice  is  he  armed  that  hath  his  quarrel 
just.  Ay,  true  indeed!  But  quarrels  there 
yet  will  be.  And  no  nation  unarmed  can  en- 
force its  quarrel,  however  just. 


23 


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A  A      000  045  800 


3  1205  00015  3914 


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